(image source: Latin American Privacy)
Abstract:
What do we gain by deploying the terms ‘privacy’ and ‘the private’ as analytical categories when we conduct historical research into the early modern period? This lecture pursues three questions: The categories of privacy and the private do not belong to a specific scholarly field. Although often understood in a narrow sense associated with Law, privacy and the private are features of human life and thus relevant for a broad range of research fields, including a broad range of historical fields. However, no single field can begin to grasp the implications and manifestations of privacy and the private in a given context. How do we best approach notions and experiences of privacy in a way that honours its facetted character? While Privacy Studies is a new field that is still defining its research focus and interdisciplinary framework, early modern studies adhere to well-established scholarly paradigms. What happens in this meeting between nascent and consolidated scholarly perspectives? How may they fruitfully benefit one another? With their undeniably contemporary ring, the terms ‘privacy’ and ‘the private’ come with a heavy risk of anachronism which historians have been taught to dread. This risk must be taken seriously and dealt with in methodologically conscious ways least we lose our scholarly credibility. However, exactly the fact that privacy and the private are contemporary terms give them a particular potency as a challenge to historical studies. What – if anything – do historians contribute to contemporary discussions of the topical issue of privacy?
(source: Latin American Privacy)
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