One of the main difficulties in assessing the meaning of privacy in the social sciences is that the term usually connotes a normative character. From the liberal defense of privacy as a right that protects individuals from state intervention and abuse, to the feminist critiques that denounce its role in disguising the oppression of women, most definitions of privacy present contrasting perspectives regarding its value or function.
Yet, when approached from the standpoint of ordinary language, privacy describes a certain domain of social practice—spatial, relational, decisional—that is generally expected to be sheltered from public scrutiny. It can be argued then, that privacy also facilitates the emergence of difference and particularity, and nourishes the development of interpersonal relations based on varying degrees of closeness and intimacy (Boling 1996).
The notion of privacy is closely connected to the predicate private, which can be ascribed to places and objects but also to practices, decisions, information, feelings, or—as critic Iris Young synthesizes—any aspect of life from which one has a right to exclude others. Control over access, then, is a central feature of privacy (Gavison 1980). Since the last decades of the twentieth century, concern over the right to privacy, its limits, and the legal measures to protect it has spanned the advances of information technologies and the incursion of the media; regulation over sexuality and the body, reproductive rights, or domestic violence; and issues of family law, such as decisions on childrearing.
In all these discussions, privacy designates a sphere of life that is protected from the influence of what is deemed external, be it state institutions or the public realm more generally. The history of the distinction between the private and public spheres can be traced back to the Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BCE), who conceived the domain of the household and family in opposition to the polis, or public realm of political activity. The divide has since remained a central theoretical notion and was inherited by the social sciences, often resulting in one of the poles viewed as a residual category defined by its opposition and relative subordination to the other. Modern theories of the public sphere, for example, often relegate the private realm to a subsidiary role. Thus, Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) argues that household matters—such as the sustenance and reproduction of life—are necessary preconditions for political life but are not part of it. In a similar vein, Jurgen Habermas sees the family as functioning to prepare individuals to be rational and autonomous actors in the public realm. In both depictions the spheres are clearly distinguished by virtue of their content, the private being equated with the domestic realm where basic necessities of life are satisfied.
The public/private divide is one of the pillars of liberal political theory, where the private is given preeminence as the sphere of individual freedoms. Classical liberal philosophers attribute a quasi-natural quality to the private realm, which is associated to the individual in opposition to the contractual character of society. This becomes evident in John Locke’s (1632-1704) natural law arguments restricting the power of the state over private property and the family, or John Stuart Mill’s (1806-1873) discussion of privacy as the natural domain of liberty.
Liberalism has long considered privacy a necessary requirement for autonomy, as it provides the adequate milieu to develop the capacity of independent decision making that allows one to lead a self-determined or autonomous life. This argument conveys an implicit spatial understanding of privacy as isolation, or seclusion, straightforwardly demarcating the space of the individual from the outside. However, privacy can conversely be conceived as a condition that allows selective degrees of access and fosters intimacy and relations with others (Schoeman 1992).
Legal perspectives focus on the notion of privacy as a right, questioning if it designates a specific domain not provided for by other established rights, such as the right to property or to individual freedoms, or debating whether it is granted by the U.S. Constitution. In the American case, for example, there has been significant discussion since the late nineteenth century concerning the status of privacy as a principle of common law. Whether considered a legal right or a moral principle, however, there is an understanding of the notion of privacy as protecting individuals from unwanted contact with others and intrusion or judgment on personal decisions.
The feminist critique that emerged in the second half of the twentieth century, has consistently challenged the liberal notion that privacy benefits all equally. Through historical and theoretical elaborations, feminists have shown that the conventional distinction between the public and the private spheres is not only naturalized, but also gendered, as the domestic is considered the realm of women and thus deprived of public recognition. The defense of privacy, they argue, serves the purpose of concealing the oppression of women through the appearance of personal choice and intimacy. Feminists deny any particularity of social relationships that happen in private that inherently distinguishes them from those that take place in public, as they are all conditioned by power and hierarchy. Rather, it is the distinction between the private and the public—between a prepolitical or natural sphere and a political one—that performs the ideological role of hiding oppression. Feminist critics have moved to reject the very distinction by stating that even the personal is political (MacKinnon 1989).
Still, several scholars are reluctant to abandon the notion of privacy altogether, and propose to produce a redescription of the concept taking into account the aforementioned critiques. Political theorists like Jean Cohen or Iris Young, for example, argue that privacy does not merely obscure oppressive practices but also enables diversity by protecting from the homogenizing pressure of the public realm and facilitating differences in experience and perspectives. Moreover, the concept is useful to confront domination of women and minorities by preserving a domain of information and decision, which might involve aspects of intimacy, sexuality, the body, or other personal issues. In a similar tone to Ferdinand Schoeman’s suggestions, these arguments draw away from conceiving the private and the public as clearly demarcated spaces, and view them instead as dimensions of social relations present in different spheres of life. Moving away from the normative bend, social sciences might depict privacy as a common practice emerging from and at the same time constituting a shared form of life.
