A Comparative Study of de Certeau and Fiske: Based on the Concepts of “Tactics and Strategies”

Abstract

This paper will particularly deal with the practices of cultural consumption based on de Certeau's most notable two concepts: “strategy” and “tactics”. Though acknowledging that “consumption is never a passive enterprise”, as emphasized by De Certeau in the Practice of Everyday Life; this study will try to oppose to some idealized conception of the everyday consumption;principally focusing on the ideas of John Fiske, in Understanding Popular Culture and Reading the Popular, as one of “the most enthusiastic supporters” of de Certeau, and will try to challenge to the wide-known perception of him “as a theorist of the little victories” by suggesting that “the tactics that de Certeau makes mention arenot libratory in the material sense of the word as they do no more than disrupt the fatality of the established order” (Buchanan, 2000: 99). Moreover it is important to note that though de Certeau and Fiske tend to be evaluated within the same “empowerment discourse” in the study of popular culture, what seems to have been underestimated is the very fact that de Certeau's theory of “resistance” differs from the one that is greatly employed by Fiske in the sense that de Certeau's interest is in “subtle movements of escape and evasion” (Buchanan, 2000: 94).