Abstract
This article interrogates the concept of tactical technical communication specifically questioning the established understanding of de Certeau in the field of technical communication. It argues once readers move beyond the concepts of strategies and tactics, they will find a rich and nuanced explanation of how ordinary people “make do” in everyday life.
In his 2006 essay Cars, Culture, and Tactical Technical Communication, Miles Kimball (2006) introduced the idea of tactical technical communication (TTC). Kimball (2006) integrated the ideas of French philosopher Michel de Certeau into technical communication in an effort to provide a philosophical basis for the proliferation of do-it-yourself (DIY), user-generated content. Since that time, numerous articles have been authored applying the concept of TTC, which has solidified its importance to the field (Colton et al., 2017; Ding, 2018; Edenfield et al., 2019a, 2019b; Holladay 2017; McCaughey, 2021; Pflugfelder, 2017; Reardon et al., 2017; Sarat-St. Peter, 2017; Sarat-St. Peter & St. Peter, 2020; Towner, 2013; Van Ittersum, 2014). Today, most authors take for granted the place of TTC in technical communication. For example, Edenfield et al. (2019b) called TTC “an older concept” (p. 181). At most, authors seek to complicate TTC with additional matters such as ethical/social justice considerations (Colton et al., 2017; Edenfield et al., 2019a, 2019b), cocreation (Reardon et al., 2017), or other theories (Edenfield et al., 2019b; Sarat-St. Peter & St. Peter, 2020). However, there have been no articles, which reevaluate the work de Certeau (1984) to determine whether its precepts fully support TTC.
This article will interrogate the concept of TTC specifically questioning the established understanding of de Certeau (1984) within the field of technical communication. My thesis is that Kimball’s (2006) use of the Certeauian ideas of “tactics” and “strategies” does not fully account for the notions expressed in de Certeau’s (1984) work The Practice of Everyday Life. Once readers move beyond these two discrete concepts found in the first half of de Certeau’s (1984) work, they will find a rich and nuanced explanation of how ordinary people “make do” in everyday life. When the full meaning of de Certeau’s (1984) ideas are illuminated, the use of his work in technical communication can become more thought provoking and nuanced as the field develops.
The use of de Certeau (1984) in technical communication has four distinct areas of limitation. First, TTC is defined by its intentional openness and broad distribution. However, de Certeau’s (1984) description of tactics does not contain these characteristics. Next, many of the examples of TTC assist third parties in their consumption of products. Yet, de Certeu’s (1984) project was not concerned with how individuals are assisted with their issues. In addition, TTC can be viewed as participating with the strategic forces that dominate society. In fact, many of the mediums used to transmit TTC are for-profit endeavors, which encourage individuals to generate content for institutional purposes. In contrast, de Certeau’s (1984) project has many of the characteristics of an anthropological exploration of an individual’s existence, which does not contemplate the production of widely distributed media. An individual’s ability to cope with strategic forces in her life is at the heart of his analysis. Finally, the use of TTC in technical communication has been confined to discussion of tactics and strategies. This lack of substantive engagement with the work of de Certeau (1984) is an issue the field must consider moving forward if it continues to rely on his work.
De Certeau’s Project and How It Contrasts With TTC
In The Practice of Everyday Life, de Certeau (1984) seeks to illuminate the way people actually operate or do things in a society dominated by an established order. In contrast to writers such as Foucault or Bourdieu, de Certeau (1984) does not choose to focus on the mechanisms of oppression. Instead, he is interested in how people live their everyday lives under this yoke of oppression. De Certeau (1984) wants “to bring to light models of action characteristic of user’s whose status as the dominated element in society … is concealed by the euphemistic term ‘consumers’” (de Certeau, 1984, p. xii). These models of action are a means of production even as consumption is taking place, that is, this secondary production is manifest through how people use the products of the dominate order. Consumers operate through consumption to produce in accordance with their own needs and wishes. They create in unexpected ways as they use the products produced by society. All of this is important to de Certeau (1984) because he wants to understand how the oppressed majority avoid being reduced to the web of discipline explored by Foucault.
Radical Sharing Is Not Very Tactical
In his introduction to the special edition of Technical Communication Quarterly (Volume 26, Number 1, 2017) devoted entirely to TTC, Kimball (2017) proposes a new tactic that is associated with TTC, “radical sharing” (p. 4). He views this new tactic as a development that de Certeau (1984) could not have envisaged when developing his ideas. Kimball (2017a) states: To la perruque and bricolage, we can now add a third tactic that de Certeau in 1984 could not anticipate: radical sharing. By radical sharing, I mean our newfound individual capability of sharing our tactics with people the world over at great speed and with great effect. With a small investment in time and money, we can reach a multitude of people in situations similar to ours and share our own approaches and techniques for everyday living (p. 4).
Of course, the original examples of TTC offered by Kimball (2006) were books, not YouTube DIY videos or web-based discussion forums. Be that as it may, a closer look at what de Certeau (1998) means by tactics is instructive in showing that radical sharing is contrary to the meaning of tactical. Further, the examples of tactics provided by de Certeau (1998) go far beyond la perruque and bricolage to show the current uses of the concept in technical communication are not in line with his original meaning.
As an initial matter, tactics are secretive, surreptitious actions by individual consumers. They are “an art of the weak” (de Certeau, 1984, p. 37). Further, in a spatial sense, de Certeau (1984) views tactics as occurring in enemy territory, what he calls “the space of the other” (p. 37). Dissimilar to Kimball’s (2006) view of TTC, tactics cannot be categorized or dichotomized in terms of a movement counter to institutionalized communication. Tactics are fundamentally “isolated actions” (de Certeau, 1984, p. 37). There can be no particular platform such as YouTube for Certeauian (1994) tactics because of their discrete, hidden nature. Tactics are used by “unrecognized producers” that “trace indeterminate trajectories that are apparently meaningless since they do not cohere with the constructed, written, and prefabricated space through which they move” (de Certeau, 1984, p. 34). The examples of TTC provided by Kimball (2006) and subsequent researchers do not clearly follow these characteristics. Whether through online platforms or traditional books, the spaces within which TTC moves are recognized and defined. In fact, these spaces are intended to be viewed by as wide an audience as possible. Their popularity is also measurable by book sales, views, likes, and subscriptions. In other words, they are controlled.
A good example of this inconsistency is found in Hilary A. Sarat-St. Peter’s (2017) essay “Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom”: Jihadist Tactical Technical Communication and the Everyday Practice of Cooking. In this work, the author explores the link between TTC and terrorism. By reviewing the free online journal Inspire produced by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), Sarat-St. Peter (2017) seeks to explain how the magazine’s bomb making instructions “prepare and persuade readers to carry out such acts of political violence” (p. 79). The instructions in Inspire overcome a reader’s lack of knowledge about explosives and motivate some to carry out terrorist attacks (Sarat-St. Peter, 2017, p. 79). The author posits technical documents contain inherently persuasive components because they assert authority over the individual.
Sarat-St. Peter (2017) contends Inspire is an example of TTC. This magazine is produced by noninstitutional actors for their own purposes. The author noted personal narratives were employed by Inspire as an effective method of tactical communication. “Personal narratives strike a balance between authority and independence, establishing the author’s credibility by describing ‘how I did it’ rather than ‘here’s how it is/was done’” (Sarat-St. Peter, 2017, p. 79).
Yet, the journal Inspire was not created or disseminated surreptitiously, and its production does not “constitute the multiform and occult postulate of productive activity” (de Certeau, 1984, p. 35). The website was completely recognizable and created through intentional action to encourage lone-wolf terrorist activities. It is not an action in itself, but an action done to arouse another’s action. In a sense, this is the case for all of the examples of TTC developed in the literature. Each one provides information for others to conduct an activity. In the case of Inspire, creating a website for DIY bomb making is not characterized by its ruses, its fragmentation, (the result of the circumstances), its poaching, its clandestine nature, its tireless but quiet activity, in short by its quasi-invisibility, since it shows itself not in its own products (where would it place them?) but in an art of using those imposed on it. (Sarat-St. Peter, 2017, p. 31)
The posting of the journal Inspire was an act of deliberate, assertive communication through a medium perfectly organized to disseminate its message.
In contrast to the examples of TTC provided in the literature (technical information placed in books, on list serves, online discussion forums, websites, subreddits), two of de Certeau’s (1984) most important examples of tactics of consumers are walking and reading. These are examples of mundane, everyday activities, which consumers use to exercise a measure of agency. For de Certeau (1994), walking is a speech act, “a space of enunciation” (p. 98). The spatial order of a city provides an infinite number of possibilities for someone walking through the city. This multitude of possibilities is compared by de Certeau (1998) to the uses of a cane by Charlie Chaplin, who used his cane for all sorts of unexpected actions for which it was clearly not designed. Walking, then, “affirms, suspects, tries out, transgresses, respects, etc., the trajectories it speaks” (de Certeau, 1984, p. 99).
Reading is another banal or “quotidian” activity that de Certeau (1998) views as having the potential for everyday individuals to express a measure of agency (p. 169). A reader always poaches from the author when consuming a text. Far from a passive activity, reading brings meaning to a text. The reader “invents in texts something different from what [the author] intended” (de Certeau, 1984, p. 169). Reading is truly an exemplar of de Certeau’s (1984) entire project. Reading is an activity, which on its face appears purely consumptive. However, beneath the surface, the reader is taking ideas from the text and mixing them with her own imagination to create meaning. The reader is inventing something new.
Technical Communication Is Often in the Service of Science (the Technic)
Another point of friction between de Certeau’s (1984) idea of tactics and technical communication is the value given to science and technology in technical communication. In many cases, technical communicators articulate technology and expertise on behalf of consumers. Further, technical communication is often concerned with expressing with clarity and simplicity. A multiplicity of meanings is discouraged (Omatowski, 1992). Ornatowski (2017a) recognized this tendency of technical communication. He views DIY YouTube videos as a move away from idealism toward a more egalitarian view of instructions. The view being “this is how I did it,” not “this is how you should do it” (Kimball, 2017, p. 74). Yet, whether the noninstitutional communicator is in the role of a subject matter expert or neophyte, she is in a position of power created by the imbalance of knowledge. Even if the communicator is only expressing “how she did it,” she is participating in a power imbalance.
De Certeau (1984) commented on the interpretation of texts (texts being a very broad concept for anything dealing with meaning) for others. The use made of the book by privileged readers constitutes it as a secret of which they are the “true” interpreters. It interposes a frontier between the text and its readers that can be crossed only if one has a passport delivered by these official interpreters. (de Certeau, 1984, p. 171)
The practitioner of TTC is privileged, at a minimum, by her knowledge of the subject matter. Platforms such as YouTube are increasingly the first place individuals will turn to in order to solve a technical issue, for an interpretation of a given context. In contrast, tactics are movements of the weak. Tactics are in the business of making do with what a person has and the position she is in.
The discourse associated with science and technology is something de Certeau (1984) views as authoritative in a society dominated by institutional power and characterized by the decline of religion. For something to be viewed as legitimate and real, it must be translated into the language of science. A “reorganization and hierarchization of knowledge according to the criterion of productivity” must occur for a practice to be recognized as legitimate (de Certeau, 1984, p. 66). Tactics are neither efficient nor productive in a material sense. They are not concerned with producing anything in an optimized, reproducible manner. Technical communication is concerned with all of those things.
In addition, even the noninstitutional examples relied on for TTC have as their goal an increase of general productivity by providing alternate, creative ways to solve problems. They seek to help others do something through instructions, descriptions. That something is to consume. De Certeau (1984) commented on this use of descriptions when he stated, It is no longer a question of approaching a “reality” (a technical operation, etc. (emphasis added)) as closely as possible and making the text acceptable through the “real” that it exhibits. On the contrary, narrated history creates a fictional space. (p. 79)
By narrated history, de Certeau (1984) is commenting on the use of stories from a former time as a tactical means of speaking about the present.
As opposed to narrative history, technical communicators use descriptions to get as close as possible to a technical operation, a description of the procedures necessary to produce a desired result. This tendency toward simplicity carries on despite the fact that some examples of TTC employ personal narratives to garner ethos from consumers. Technical communication’s use of narrative is completely different from the “narrated history” described by de Certeau (1984). Efficiency and clarity of meaning are infused in all technical communication (including noninstitutional technical communication). It is an expectation. The use of narrative by some TTC practitioners, which could be construed as inefficient, is done for effect. It plays on the expectation of clarity and efficiency for purposes of ethos, humor, or originality. Tactics, on the other hand, are virtually invisible actions of consumers having no relation to these expectations.
This phenomenon of using personal narratives to encourage consumption is at the forefront of Edenfield et al.’s (2019b) discussion of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) forums found on the website Reddit. In their essay, the authors present an intersection of TTC, ethics, new materialism, and queer theory. The linchpin of the analysis is the use of personal narratives to supplement medical information regarding HRT. They describe the manuals created by HRT forum members as “an exact articulation” of some of Kimball’s (2006) pioneering work (Edenfield et al., 2019b, p. 185). They observe: This manual is interspersed with anecdotal observations about DIY HRT that are not copied word-for-word, such as, “It’s [sic] side effects include headaches, vomiting, and occasionally leg cramps and liver problems. These, however, happen very rarely. DO NOT TAKE THIS IF YOU HAVE ANY FAMILY HISTORY OF DEEPVEIN THROMBOSIS!! It can make it worse!” Also, unlike a formal medical manual, this creator of tactical content offers not only her, his, or their own ethos and experience, but also an ongoing update of other individuals’ experiences in transitioning, “However, I will post people’s experiences soon. Stay tuned!!” (Edenfield et al., 2019b, p. 185)
The use of TTC in this manner is reliant on the subject matter’s perceived resistance to normalizing health-care strategies through their supplementation of institutional health-care information with personal narratives. The posts create a material place of personal agency. They “gesture toward how emergent agencies function to support even the more instrumental of tactical aims in these spaces” (Edenfield et al., 2019b, p. 184). However, without the personal narratives from individuals who have gone through HRT, the forums lose their appeal. In other words, the TTC is used to persuade and garner support. From the perspective of de Certeau (1984), these are not the goals of tactical activities. Tactics are individual and virtually unseen. They do not seek to create agency in others through the provision of unique knowledge to third parties. Tactics are ends in themselves. They are how individuals make do in a society marked by strategic control.
User-Made Content Participates in Strategic Communication
The platforms used by the practitioners of TTC are all strategic in nature. Internet-based communications are routinely coopted for institutional purposes. From the monitoring of website viewing to tailored advertisements on YouTube, all of the mediums chosen for TTC have a profit motive, strategic motivation. The books described by Kimball (2006) in his initial work on TTC have as their motive for publication the sale of books. This begs the question of whether a profit motive alone eviscerates the tactical nature of an action. I argue it does. Tactics are done on an individual basis for personal purposes. Having a secondary motive for an action (i.e., monetary gain) does not comport with tactical activities such as walking or reading. Regardless of how one decides this issue, there is a clear benefit to institutions from the content created by TTC.
The websites hosting content make a profit, YouTube makes a profit, book publishers make a profit, and so forth. None of the examples of tactics provided by de Certeau (1984) have as an ancillary benefit profit for a third party. Describing the inventive actions taken by consumers as they consume is the purpose of de Certeau’s (1984) work on everyday life. Viewing a YouTube DIY video is consumption. Visiting a subscription-based website dealing with mental health issues is consumption. Purchasing a DIY car manual is consumption. However, this consumption is done without any of the invention and agency described by de Certeau (1984).
De Certeau (1984) also comments on the mysterious skill some possess in the way of “know-how” or the native ability to fix, repair, and tinker with things (p. 70). He views this ability as having been largely replaced by machines and scientific knowledge. The engineer is the translator of this type of knowledge. Any vestige of the ability to do or make is now “a private activity” shown through individual abilities or intuitions. This is a tactical making do described by de Certeau (1984) that “science doesn’t know what to do with” (p. 70). However, the type of “know-how” described by de Certeau (1984) cannot be articulated in a book or through a video. It is a native ability “unaware of itself” (p. 70).
Individuals with this ability “bear witness to it without being able to appropriate it” (de Certeau, p. 71). Many of the DIY aficionados on YouTube or in books are examples of this knowledge. Nonetheless, the source of their know-how is opaque to the viewer/reader and themselves. It is “referential and undefined” (de Certeau, 1984, p. 72). These individuals describe to the consumer how to do or make something but are unaware of how they obtained the ability that guided them into arriving at this solution. This innate “primitive knowledge” remains undefined. This state of being is a human faculty. The ability to solve problems and broadcast the solution is an outcome of this way of everyday being. The human faculty is what de Certeau (1984) is describing, not any particulars shown though outcomes. De Certeau (1984) quoting Kant states, “the faculty of judgement exceeds the understanding. …The faculty of judging what clothes a chambermaid should wear” is a mysterious thing (p. 73). Hence, the faculty of know-how is a tactical way of being. Turning this ability into communication (i.e., TTC) is not illustrative of the knowledge. It is a secondary act encouraging consumption.
Van Ittersum’s (2014) piece on crafting and DIY narratives explores this very phenomenon. In contrast to many of the works dealing with DIY information, Van Ittersum (2014) does not primarily rely on de Certeau (1984) for his analysis of the website Instructables.com. The author is concerned with how individual narratives are used in DIY videos to persuade and motivate viewers to accomplish the task at hand whether it involves constructing an Ikea computer desk or a barrel composter. Van Ittersum (2014) uses de Certeau (1984) to complicate the analysis of Goodwin (1991), who employed narrative theory to analyze procedural discourse (p. 235). However, as with all other discussions on the topic, Van Ittersum’s (2014) analysis relies on the distinction made by Kimball (2006) between tactical and strategic communication (p. 236). The author also mentions de Certeau’s use of the term metis as he analyzes the characteristics of DIY instructional videos. He concludes that When seen as driven by metis and kairos, the craft of DIY activity represented in the personal narratives in these instructables is primarily a way of thinking and responding to situations, not a craft that involves the steady, disciplined, development of a physical, artistic skill. (p. 236)
This native know-how described in the personal narratives provides tactical opportunities to the authors of the DIY videos.
However, Van Ittersum’s (2014) discussion of de Certeau (1984) does not capture the individual and surreptitious nature of tactics. In fact, he adds the term narrative to tactics (“tactical narratives”) when he discusses the concept, which makes clear that he views de Certeau’s (1984) work as squarely applicable to communications aimed at facilitating the actions of others (p. 236). The use of mechanical skill presented by the producers of the instructional videos is a clear example of how individuals seek to assist others in their consumption of products and facilitate attention for their efforts. De Certeau’s (1984) project was concerned with how individuals navigate an environment of manifest oppression. His was an anthropological attempt at describing everyday living, not a tool of analysis concerning noninstitutional communication.
Most importantly, what Kimball (2006) describes as TTC is actually identified by de Certeau (1984) in his discussion on the machinery of representation. User-generated content is fueled by a currency of credibility. This credibility is quantified by the number of views, responses, likes, retweets, and so forth received for a piece of content. De Certeau (1984) anticipated this type of discourse when he stated, “to become a fragment of language, a single name, that can be read and quoted by others: this passion moves the ascetic armed with instruments for mortifying his flesh, or the philosopher who does the same to language” (p. 149). Individuals personify a discourse through their bodies and actions. They are eager to finally have a name, be called, and be transformed “into a saying” (p. 149).
The desire for affirmation through the currency of credibility drives TTC’s replication and its normative value. DIY videos and blogs are created by individuals with a desire for a voice, a platform, and a name. However, this desire cannot be divorced from the strategic forces that form the discourse. Those individuals who generate this type of content are embodying a discourse of capitalism, popularity, and fame. They generate content for consumption out of a desire to enter the social discourse, a discourse marked by strategic purposes.
What We Know About de Certeau From Kimball and Other Technical Communicators: Tactics (Bricolage and La perruque) and Strategies
Kimball (2006) began his work on noninstitutional technical communication by analyzing a 1969 manual for Volkswagen maintenance and a 2000 guide to building a sports car. Both of these artifacts assisted amateur mechanics in completing repairs or solving issues with their vehicles. Kimball (2006) saw technical communication as a broadening field encompassing many nontraditional forms of communication such as these publications. The communities that utilized the two artifacts not only communicated with one another about technical issues dealing with motor vehicles. They also actively created technical documents for use by members of their community. These user-generated technical documents were examples of what Kimball (2006) labeled “tactical technical communication.” In formulating this concept, Kimball (2006) brought the ideas of de Certeau (1984) to technical communication.
According to Kimball (2006), de Certeau (1984) differentiates between strategies and tactics regarding the producers and consumers of culture. A strategy is the relation formed between the purveyor of power and its external constituents (e.g., a company and its customers). “A strategy assumes a place that can be circumscribed as proper and thus serves as the basis for generating relations with an exterior distinct from it” (de Certeau, 1984, xix). Strategies are used by institutions and governments to manufacture and perpetuate political, economic, and scientific rationality. Quite simply, culture itself (de Certeau, 1984, p. xix). Therefore, those in power are characterized by production, and their relations with consumers are strategies.
In contrast, tactics are performed by the marginalized majority of society who are marked by consumption. Tactics are a form of agency in the process of consumption. According to de Certeau (1984), tactics insinuate themselves fragmentarily into the place of the other (i.e., a culture dominated by producers) (de Certeau, 1984, p. xiv). Consumers continually look for opportunities to employ tactics. They take disparate objects not their own and turn them into something useful for their own purposes. De Certeau (1984) states that many everyday activities are tactical in nature (e.g., walking, reading, shopping, and cooking). Tactical activities are a means to get away with things (de Certeau, 1984, p. xix). Tactics wander out of orbit, making consumers into immigrants in a system too vast to be their own, too tightly woven for them to escape from it. But these tactics introduce a Brownian movement into the system. They also show the extent to which intelligence is inseparable from the everyday struggles and pleasures it articulates. (de Certeau, 1984, p. xx)
Tactics come into being at opportune moments for the employment of “clever tricks” akin to the Greek notion of metis (de Certeau, 1984, p. xix). While strategies are often concealed by objective associations with power, tactics are short-term movements by consumers in systems they are unable to escape. “Into the institution to be served are thus insinuated styles of social exchange, technical invention, and moral resistance” (de Certeau, 1984, p. 26).
De Certeau (1984) provided examples of tactics employed by consumers. He discussed an indigenous saint, Damiao, revered by indigenous peoples for his resistance to Spanish colonization. This reverence created a space of opposition within a culture dominated by elites. The indigenous peoples subverted [the colonizer] from within—not by rejecting them or by transforming them (though that occurred as well), but by many different ways of using them in the service of rules, customs or convictions foreign to the colonization they could not escape. (de Certeau, 1984, p. 32)
In addition, de Certeau (1984) discussed the practices of la perruque and bricolage as tactics of marginalized peoples. La perruque or “the wig” is a colloquial term for the use of an employer’s time, equipment, or supplies for an employee’s own purposes. De Certeau (1984) gives the examples of a secretary writing a love letter while at work and an artisan making something for himself with his employer’s tools and supplies as la perruque (de Certeau, 1984, p. 25). Bricolage is the formation of something useful from an assortment of items meant for other purposes. De Certeau (1984) characterizes bricolage as “artisan-like inventiveness” (de Certeau, 1984, p. xviii). For de Certeau (1984), these two tactics are related to and indicative of the collapse of any division between work and leisure. “La perruque grafts itself onto the system of the industrial assembly line (its counterpoint, in the same place), as a variant of the activity which, outside the factory (in another place), takes the form of bricolage” (de Certeau, 1984, p. 29).
Kimball (2006) viewed the explosion of user-generated content as inherently tactical within the meaning provided by de Certeau (1984). He postulated that narrative is the link between objects and texts and that this linkage is the traditional domain of technical communication. According to de Certeau (1984), as workers and craftsman became separated from the design of machines, they turned to a “narrativity for everyday practices” as the means by which to express their knowledge and experiences with the machines they operated (de Certeau, 1984, p. 70).
In fact, narratives have long been seen as mechanisms that shape technical documents on both the local and communal levels. Kimball (2006) provides the example of Barton and Barton’s “Narrative in Technical Communication” to show how master narratives at the communal level (e.g., the scientific method) are embodied in technical documents (Kimball, 2006, p. 73). Further, at the local level, traditional technical communication documents (e.g., manuals, proposals, and reports) also describe strategic understandings of how technology could, should, or does operate.
Because institutions are the owners of strategic communication, their use of narratives for technical matters are prescriptive and idealized, “this is how you should do it.” In contrast, on a tactical level, consumer narratives about technical matters are in the form of personal testimonials, “this is how I did it” (Kimball, 2006, p. 74). Thus, an “economy of the gift (generosities for which one expects a return), an esthetics of tricks (artists’ operations) and an ethics of tenacity (countless ways of refusing to accord the established order the state of law, a meaning or a fatality)” characterize TTC (de Certeau, 1984, p. 26).
However, as one begins to view TTC more critically, issues with the concept begin to arise. The authors of both of the vehicle manuals discussed in Kimball’s (2006) inaugural article on TTC wrote and published their vehicle manuals for profit. For Kimball (2006), this commercial enterprise where authors are placing themselves in the role of experts offering a degree of agency to their customers is analogous to de Certeau’s (1984) discussion of everyday tactical practices in a strategic system. However, de Certeau (1984) makes clear that knowledge is created and recognized by those in power. He writes, “A certain power is the precondition of this knowledge and not merely its effects or its attribute. It makes this knowledge possible and at the same time determines its characteristics. It produces itself in and through this knowledge” (de Certeau, 1984, p. 36). Hence, the original artifacts associated with TTC are more closely aligned with strategic communications than tactical ones. Kimball (2006) obliquely recognized this when he stated: Users buy into the human/technological narratives promoted by the manuals and are thus shaped by the larger cultural dynamics surrounding the manuals—an element brought to light by the fact that most who praise Muir’s manual are liberals of a certain age and that most people reading Champion’s manual are middle-class, middle-aged white men. (Kimball, 2006, p. 82)
The preceding discussion of strategies and tactics provided by Kimball (2006) is substantively tracked in each of the subsequent articles on TTC (Colton et al., 2017; Ding, 2018; Edenfield et al., 2019a, 2019b; Holladay, 2017; McCaughey, 2020; Pflugfelder, 2017; Reardon et al., 2017; Sarat-St. Peter, 2017; Sarat-St. Peter & St. Peter, 2020; Towner, 2013; Van Ittersum, 2014). There are no significant changes made to Kimball’s (2006) basic approach. TTC has become synonymous in the literature with noninstitutional technical communication. Tactical equals noninstitutional. While this approach may have roots in de Certeau (1994), it does not encompass the full range of his ideas on the subject. In fact, when separated from the whole of de Certeau’s (1994) work, the concepts of strategies and tactics could be viewed as a reductive shorthand for what is in actuality a much richer project.
Conclusion or Why This Matters
De Certeau (1984) concluded his project on everyday life by musing over the functionalist move in society precipitated by the reliance on technology. He posited that “rational techics” remove dogmatism (religion, ideology, etc.) in the name of efficiency, and everyday practices are what lie beneath technology disturbing its operation. These practices are hidden in customs, rites, and special practices. Yet, a large part of TTC embraces technology and economic or social advancement. While noninstitutional technical communication is an accepted part of everyday life, its production and distribution are not what concerned de Certeau (1984). He sought to explore the place where the passive was active, how consumers resolve the strategic domination of their existence.
In fact, what we now call TTC has actually been a part of the field of technical communication some time. In Scott et al.’s (2006) groundbreaking analysis in Critical Power Tools, the authors set out to provide approaches to technical communication that are “openly critical of nonegalitarian, unethical practices and subject positions that promote values other than conformity, efficiency, and effectiveness, and that account for technical communication’s broader cultural conditions, circulation, and effects” (p. 1). As a consequence of this work and many others, the range of acceptable subject matter for study in technical communication has expanded to include nontraditional sources. This necessarily implicates the ideas associated with TTC. For example, the discussion of cookbooks (Durack, 1997; Fleitz, 2010; Moeller & Frost, 2016) or extraorganizational bicycle manuals written by women (Hallenbeck, 2012) are acceptable artifacts for study in technical communication. These artifacts are examples of noninstitutional DIY instructional materials analogous to TTC.
There are also instances in the literature where DIY instructional materials are interrogated without reliance on the concept of TTC. For example, Getto and Labriola (2016) reviewed the strategies used by the open-source, wiki-based content management system ifixit.com to encourage individuals to upload user-generated repair guides (p. 37). Interestingly, the purpose of this article is the strategic aim of giving companies “a competitive edge” in creating innovative ways to leverage open-source content (Getto & Labriola, 2016, p. 37). Finally, much of the literature on environmental communication, for example, contains an analysis of rhetorical moves used by citizens in response to environmental proposals (Druschke, 2013; Herndl & Zarlengo, 2017). Taken broadly, these artifacts are user-generated, noninstitutional speech of an instructional nature used to persuade their fellow citizens. Therefore, TTC as an analytical tool has challenges because a large portion of what is considered technical communication could be characterized as tactical.
Regardless, the project of de Certeau (1984) has never been more important to our field. How will consumers poach on the property of others and act with cunning concerning issues in our own time such as the acceptance of new vaccines or changes in voting laws? De Certeau (1984) sought to illuminate these sorts of activities. The field of technical communication and rhetoric would benefit from studying the practices of everyday living in order to understand how people actually behave, dwell in our society. This benefit would come in the form of a greater understanding of humanity, not necessarily from its utilization. The moment the field seeks to communicate its understanding of consumer behavior for its own ends, to commodify it, the field runs the risk of becoming part of the strategic fabric of society. There is no question the DIY videos and other examples of TTC provide agency to their viewers in the form of greater understanding and knowhow regarding all sorts of projects and issues. Whether de Certeau (1984) articulated this form of behavior in his work is another matter.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
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