tactic

(idea) by AnotherMartini (3.2 mon) (print) ? (I like it!) Fri Nov 09 2001 at 14:19:02

In cultural studies, a tactic refers to an everyday cultural practice that enable alienated and oppressed people to achieve practical kinds of power, without disrupting the established social order. According to Michel de Certeau, tactics are:

...victories of the 'weak' over the 'strong', clever tricks, knowing how to get away with things, 'hunter's cunning' maneuvers, polymorphic simulations, joyful discoveries, poetic as well as warlike.

Tactics create a transitory type of power, which de Certeau likens to "a rented apartment.... transforming another person's property into a space borrowed for a moment" - a momentary escape from the dominant order. A tactic focusses on divergent uses of existing cultural objects, rather than creating objects anew. Thus elements of consumption that highlight pastiche and bricolage such as fashion or music (especially punk and hip hop), are often analysed as tactics that subvert intended meanings and functions.

all quotes from Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984

(definition) by Webster 1913 (print) Wed Dec 22 1999 at 3:40:24

Tac"tic (?), Tac"tic*al (?), a. [Gr. . See tactics.]

Of or pertaining to the art of military and naval tactics.

-- Tac"tic*al*ly, adv.

Tac"tic (?), n.

See Tactics.

printable version
chaos

Tactics	Michel de Certeau	From Gambit	Shufflepuck Cafe
low blow	Assembling My Father: A Daughter's Detective Story	The Great Blondino	Muscles rippling in olive oil
General advice for preventing attacks	Masada	lose with a little panache	U-Hoarding
false flag operation	Feed the hog	Tic Tac	avow
Rook vs Knight Endgames	Political suicide	strategy	tacticity
Publius Cornelius Tacitus	Anytus	Parthian shot	Liquid War

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