[4] After obtaining degrees in classics and philosophy at the universities of Grenoble and Lyon, he studied the works of Pierre Favre (1506–1546) at the École pratique des hautes études (Paris) with Jean Orcibal.
De Certeau's most well-known and influential work in the United States has been The Practice of Everyday Life, cited in fields such as rhetoric,[6][7] performance studies,[8] and law.
According to Andrew Blauvelt, who relies on the work of de Certeau in his essay on design and everyday life:[11] De Certeau's investigations into the realm of routine practices, or the "arts of doing" such as walking, talking, reading, dwelling, and cooking, were guided by his belief that despite repressive aspects of modern society, there exists an element of creative resistance to these structures enacted by ordinary people.
According to him, strategies are used by those within organizational power structures, whether small or large, such as the state or municipality, the corporation or the proprietor, a scientific enterprise or the scientist.
Strategies are deployed against some external entity to institute a set of relations for official or proper ends, whether adversaries, competitors, clients, customers, or simply subjects.
[13] A multidisciplinarian, he wrote ground-breaking studies in fields as diverse as mysticism, the act of faith, cultural dynamics in contemporary society, and historiography as an intellectual practice.
His impact continues unabated, with new volumes appearing regularly, and perhaps surprisingly his reputation is growing even more rapidly in English and German-speaking countries and the Mediterranean than in his native France.