In 1890, lawyers Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis conceived of a "sacred" right, the right to "be let alone." They argued for this right as a measure of "retreat from the world" for protection of an individual's "inviolate personality." Their argument was born in response to intrusions made possible with technological developments in printing and photography. For over a 100-year period, the concept of privacy has received attention from a multi-disciplinary collection of scholars. Despite this significant attention, however, relatively little consideration has been paid to conceptualizations of privacy in the everyday. My dissertation utilizes the focus group method to access individuals' stories about privacy in everyday lives. The unit of the story is important because it contains rich connotative language, imbued with meaning. My method of analysis is inspired primarily by Michel de Certeau and Clifford Geertz. This analysis reveals four significant themes, all linking back to Warren and Brandeis's original conceptualization in thinking about privacy in the everyday: it is associated with fears, it is considered a defence against surveillance, it is conceived of in metaphorical terms as a protective boundary, and it protects personal information and individual autonomy. This dissertation explores how individuals articulate these themes. It finds that individuals apply the language of space as a framework in which to believe their privacy is protected from surveillance.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.85147 |
| Date | January 2004 |
| Creators | Dayan, Michael Oved |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Department of Art History and Communication Studies.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 002227101, proquestno: AAINR12827, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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