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BookReviewThePracticeofEverydayLifebyMicheldeCerteau.TranslatedbyStevenF.Rendall

ARTICLEinAMERICANJOURNALOFSOCIOLOGY·NOVEMBER1987

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MicheleLamont

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Review Author(s): Michele Lamont Review by: Michele Lamont Source: American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 93, No. 3 (Nov., 1987), pp. 720-721Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2780302Accessed: 25-09-2015 21:39 UTC

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American Journal of Sociology

thorough study of the social and cognitive development of contemporary linguistics and its relationships with literary studies, anthropology, psy- chology, and sociology has yet to be written.

The Practice of Everyday Life. By Michel de Certeau. Translated by Steven F. Rendall. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1984. Pp. 229. $24.95.

Michele Lamont Princeton University

Former Jesuit, erudite historian, ethnologist, member of the Freudian school of Paris, Michel de Certeau died at the beginning of 1986. The Practice of Everyday Life is one of his books currently available in En- glish. It is concerned with a theme central to ongoing research in cultural anthropology, social history, and cultural studies: the theme of resistance. De Certeau develops a theoretical framework for analyzing how the "weak" make use of the "strong" and create for themselves a sphere of autonomous action and self-determination within the constraints that are imposed on them. Locating his theoretical problem in the margins of Michel Foucault's microphysics of power, de Certeau documents and analyzes infinitesimal procedures of resistance against apparatuses of con- trol. The gist of his argument is as follows: Dominated actors have tactics to manipulate events and turn them into opportunities (p. xix). They try to satisfy their own needs by foiling the rules of the game imposed by others, trying to get away with things, misinterpreting orders, and so on. Their problem is how to affirm their identities and to get along in net- works of already established situations. Their solution is to manipulate these situations. De Certeau provides examples of how this is accom- plished. La perruque (literally, the wig) is a case in point. It refers to how French workers satisfy their own needs on company time (e.g., writing love letters during office hours, using scraps to fabricate goods). Workers create gratuitous products, independent from profit-making rationality. These symbolize moral resistance to order and to the curse of having to make a living, as well as solidarity with their co-workers. De Certeau attempts to conceptualize this kind of practice as acts of reappropriation, "schemata for action" or "ways of operating" in various areas of activity (e.g., reading [interpreting texts], talking, believing, and walking). Each section of the book focuses on one of these dimensions.

Contrary to others who have worked on resistance strategies, de Cer- teau is more interested in creative diversions than in direct opposition or passive resistance. He gives special attention to strategies of manipulating meaning. Part 4, therefore, will be of interest to those who work on intertextuality and postmodernism.

De Certeau's work anticipates problematics currently being discussed in American anthropology by, for instance, James Clifford. Building on

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Book Reviews

his previous work (L'ecriture de l'histoire, 1978), he discusses the epis- temological problems associated with the analysis of nondiscursive prac- tices of resistance often described in term of flair, taste, instinct (e.g., what makes somebody "street smart"). Theorizing about this kind of activity implies subjecting the "unconsciousness of practitioners to the reflection of the non-practitioners. " De Certeau criticizes Bourdieu's work on practice for falling into this trap.

De Certeau's project is typically Cartesian: it develops a complex sys- tem of categories to "articulate" what is practice and how it emerges. Whereas the first part of the book is more or less straightforward in its objectives, the structure of the argument weakens as we progress. Given the metaphorical and elliptical nature of de Certeau's prose and the lack of systematization of his argument, the University of California Press should have provided both an index and an editor.

De Certeau's book does not satisfy our curiosity. Whereas de Certeau limits himself to circumscribing a problematic, a healthy dialogue be- tween empirical data and theory is more appropriate for developing a theory of resistance. Furthermore, drawing on an impressively large liter- ature from linguistics, philosophy, anthropology, and sociology, de Cer- teau does not provide his material with enough conceptual unity. His contribution reminds me of the popular culture from the northeast of Brazil that he studied. It is playful, colorful, complex, disrespectful, and undisciplined. However, de Certeau's inquisitive mind might offer a number of stimulating insights, if one is willing to be patient and to read this book at a leisurely pace.

Game Theory in the Social Sciences. Vol. 2, A Game-theoretic Approach to Political Economy. By Martin Shubik. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1987. Pp. vii+ 744. $47.50 (cloth); $15.95 (paper).

Piotr Swistak State University of New York at Stony Brook

This is the second volume of Martin Shubik's Game Theory in the Social Sciences, of which volume 1 was entitled Concepts and Solutions. The two volumes together form an almost encyclopedic review of game theory and its applications to the social sciences. The main objective of A Game- theoretic Approach to Political Economy is to develop a general theoreti- cal framework for economic analysis that might be capable of including traditionally noneconomic factors, that is, sociological, political, psycho- logical, or legal. Shubik claims that modern game theory provides such a unifying framework.

While the first volume lays out the basics of game theory and is there- fore addressed to a more general audience, the present volume surveys its applications in political economy and is clearly oriented toward econ- omists. It presupposes a knowledge of the conceptual game-theoretic

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