Where exactly do tactics take place? De Certeau makes it clear. A tactic must
"...make use of the cracks that particular conjunctions open in the surveillance of the proprietary powers. It poaches in them. It creates surprises in them. It can be where it is least expected. It is a guileful ruse" (37)
In this tactic, the worker diverts time away from producing profit for his or her employer and instead uses it for his or her own enjoyment, for activities that are "free, creative, and precisely not directed toward profit" (de Certeau, 25). Everyday life, for de Certeau, is made up of such tactics as "la perruque". Everyday life is made up of "clever tricks, knowing how to get away with things, 'hunter's cunning' ..." (de Certeau, xix). Everday life is made up of tactics and of poaching.
The link then which de Certeau represents between Foucault and Fiske becomes evident. Whereas Foucault's geneaology of the eighteenth century revealed how poaching becomes problematized at the time when anxieties develop regarding capital and material objects, de Certeau shows the ways in which poaching shifts from a tactic of stealing goods to a tactic of time, of fleeting encounters with dominant formations in which nothing of material value is gained. By calling these manuvers "clever tricks of the 'weak'", de Certeau creates the possibilities for Fiske's discussions on poaching in Understanding Popular Culture (de Certeau, 38). "The landlord provides the building within which we dwell, the department store our means of furnishing it, and the culture industry the texts we 'consume' as we relax within it," says Fiske, but in inhabiting the landlord's space, "the practices of dwelling are ours, not his" (Fiske, 33).
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