A fourth critic of the Enlightenment

Michel de Certeau and the ethnography of subjectivity*

in Social Anthropology/Anthropologie sociale
Author:
Jon P. Mitchell Department of Anthropology, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QN, UK J.P.Mitchell@sussex.ac.uk

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This paper examines the potential contribution of the work of Michel de Certeau (1925–1986) to anthropological theories of agency, resistance and subjectivity. It argues that de Certeau's work shares with contemporary anthropological theory a legacy of the counter‐Enlightenment that combines a profound pessimism about modern society with an emphasis on the redemptive possibility of populism, expressivism and pluralism. Whilst in anthropology these developed into a complex theorisation of agency, resistance and subjectivity as embedded in socio‐cultural context, de Certeau appears to systematically avoid a coherent Rather, he offers a of agency, resistance and subjectivity that sees resistance through ‘tactics’ as the manifestation of an enduring counter‐modern human spirit, and as inherently morally good. The paper closes with a caution against anthropologists adopting a similar ‘theological’ stance towards resistance.

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