Maghrebian Public Space in France Today: The Vision of French Thinker: Michel de Certeau

Abstract

Michel de Certeau's thinking gears towards constructing a vision of public space in accordance with the dichotomy of the strategic and the tactical. This dualism acts as a method within the daily practices of actors in "systems of social behavior." In displaying the contradictory features of two different worlds in the sociological environment, De Certeau tries to achieve a comparative approach to Maghrebian public space that he regards as a tactic and its counterpart French public space that he defines as a strategy – strategy understood as a system that detects practices and representations, and tactic as an act of resistance to this system, played out as "opposition" in a "private place". It would seem however that "society as a field of conflict" is a reflection of the idea of difference in "world-views" when transferring representations into practices. Indeed, this is reflected in the hypothesis of the expansion and spread of Maghrebian culture as a difference in France, although there is a great deal of interaction and communication imposed by the dominant public space.