"There is a crack, a crack in everything". Michel de Certeau and the study of religion

This paper explores the question : what kind of scholar of religion was Michel de Certeau ? It begins by examining key aspects of his theory of history and historiography, with particular emphasis on the formality of practices. Next, it delves into his multi-perspectival analysis of religion before briefly surveying his reception in the contemporary study of religion. Ultimately, the paper argues that Certeau’s most enduring intellectual contribution – the cartography of “tactics” – embodies a distinctly humanistic approach to religion, one that strongly resonates with the work of the most influential theorist of religion since the late twentieth century, Jonathan Z. Smith.