In
cultural studies, a tactic refers to an everyday cultural practice that enable alienated and oppressed people to achieve practical kinds of
power, without disrupting the established
social order. According to
Michel de Certeau, tactics are:
...victories of the 'weak' over the 'strong', clever tricks, knowing how to get away with things, 'hunter's cunning' maneuvers, polymorphic simulations, joyful discoveries, poetic as well as warlike.
Tactics create a transitory type of
power, which de Certeau likens to "a rented apartment.... transforming another person's
property into a space
borrowed for a moment" - a momentary escape from the dominant order. A tactic focusses on divergent uses of existing
cultural objects, rather than creating objects anew. Thus elements of
consumption that highlight
pastiche and
bricolage such as
fashion or
music (especially
punk and
hip hop), are often analysed as tactics that subvert intended meanings and functions.
all quotes from Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984