Tactics

From Geography

Tactics Definition by Michel de Certeau

Tactics are to be understand in relation to power and strategy. The gaze of power transfixes objects but also thus becomes blind to a vast array of things that do not fit its categories. Strategic power works by controlling and organising space to construct proper knowledge. In contrast, tactics - the art of space making do, like reading or cooking - use what is there in multiple permutations. In de Certeau's terms they pass without occupying space. (Crang 146-147)

De Certeau says more specified about Tactics: I call a 'Tactic' on the other hand, a calculus which cannot count on a 'proper' (a spatial or institutional localization, nor thus on a borderline distinguishing the other as a visible totality. The place of a tactic belongs to the other.... Because it[a tactic] does not have a place, a tactic depends on time. It is always on the watch for opportunities that must be seized 'on the wing'.(de Certeau xix)

Tactics are the weapons of the weak. Many everyday practices (talking, reading, moving about, shopping cooking, etc. are tactical in character. And so are, more generally, many 'ways of operating': victories of the 'weak' over the 'strong'(whether the strength be that of powerful people or the violence of things or of an imposed order, etc), clever tricks, knowing how to get away with things, ‘hunters cunning’, manoeuvres, polymorphic simulations, joyful discoveries, poetic as well as warlike. (de Certeau xix)

References:

Crang, M.(2000. Relics, Places and unwritten geographies in the work of Michel de Certeau(1925-1986). In: Crang, M. & Trihft, N.(eds) Thinking space.[Electronic version] Routledge, London.

De Certeau, M.(1984) Introduction. In the practice of everyday life.[Electronic version] Berkely: university of California press.