I’ve just read Michel de Certeau’s The Practice of Everyday Life and was utterly disappointed. Apart from an important insight at the beginning, that people do not just passively consume or absorb cultural artefacts but appropriate them for their own ends, it seemed to me completely overblown and rather pointless verbiage. I mean that precisely not polemically: it did not really seem to have much of a point beyond the one I just mentioned. If he had done some sociological research to substantiate his initial point it could have been great, but he didn’t. I also think he overplays how significant his idea is. One of his examples is cooking: people don’t always use ingredients as they’re supposed to, but that I don’t think that is particularly significant (I know it could tell you something about a person’s educational level etc but you cannot necessarily infer anything from that in a general way).
Could someone redeem it for me?
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