Michel de Certeau

Michel de Certeau was a French scholar known for exploring how individuals navigate and make sense of cultural systems. He distinguished between "strategies," which are the official ways institutions control space and meaning, and "tactics," the everyday practices people use to assert their identities and reappropriate culture. His work emphasizes how personal memories and actions shape collective identity and social history. Certeau highlights the creativity and agency of individuals in interpreting and subverting societal norms, revealing how ordinary people contribute to cultural narratives and histories that often go unrecognized.