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Quote by Michel de Certeau

“The trace left behind is substituted for the practice. It exhibits the (voracious) property that the geographical system has of being able to transform action into legibility, but in doing so it causes a way of being in the world to be forgotten.”

Quote by Michel de Certeau

Work

The Practice of Everyday Life

This book delves into the mundane elements of everyday existence, examining how they shape human behavior and societal structures. more

Author

Michel de Certeau
Michel de Certeau

Michel de Certeau (May 17, 1925 - January 9, 1986) was a prominent French sociologist and philosopher known for his research on the practices of everyday life. His work delved into the dynamics of power, space, and time, and how individuals create their own spaces within structured societies. more

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“Political organizations have slowly substituted themselves for the Churches as the places of believing practices, but for this very reason, they seem to have been haunted by the return of a very ancient (preChristian) and very “pagan” alliance between power and religion. It is as though now that religion has ceased to be an autonomous power (the “power of religion,” people used to say), politics has once again become religious.”

“The sick man must follow his illness to the place where it is treated... He is set aside in one of the technical and secret zones (hospitals, prisons, refuse dumps) which relieve the living of everything that might hinder the chain of production and consumption, and which repair and select what can be sent back up to the surface of progress.”

“A place (lieu) is the order (of whatever kind) in accord with which elements are distributed in relationships of coexistence. It thus excludes the possibility of two thing being in the same location (place). The law of the 'proper' rules in the place: the elements taken into consideration are beside one another, each situated in its own 'proper' and distinct location, a location it defines. A place is thus an instantaneous configuration of positions. It implies an indication of stability.”