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Privacy and Health in Utopia

Is privacy compatible with a healthy society?

Surely so, we might answer. But the question is more complicated than it might seem.

Utopias are generally described as healthy societies. In Thomas More’s Utopia (1516), people enjoy excellent health. The narrator, Raphael Hythloday, a traveller who claims to have visited Utopia, reports that, ‘nowhere are people’s bodies more vigorous or less susceptible to disease’ (78).[1]

In The History of the Sevarambians (1675–9), the narrator describes the inhabitants as ‘strong’[2]:

[F]or the most part [they] enjoy a great degree of Health, which is owing partly to their Birth and Manner of living, and partly to their Gaiety and Liveliness of Disposition.

Hence, utopians are not automatically healthy. As in the utopia of the Sevarambians, social conditions, and reasonable efforts to exercise and live moderately result in good health.

Utopia is never perfect, but a place where, mainly on account of good governance and circumstances, life is better.

However, many such healthy utopian societies also have limited privacy. In More’s Utopia, both privacy and private property have been abolished:

Every house has a front door to the street and a back door to the garden. The double doors, which open easily with a push of the hand and close again automatically, let anyone come in—so there is nothing private anywhere.

Hythloday himself is an advocate of a communal society without private property. In Book I of Utopia, he debates this issue with More and his friend Pieter Gilles in Antwerp. They consider the impact of the enclosures of common lands—a proto-capitalist example of privatization then taking place in England. The commons were being given to private landholders to graze sheep for profit, leaving many peasants destitute.

During this discussion, Hythloday has this to say about a healthy society:

so long as private property remains, there is no hope at all of effecting a cure and restoring society to good health. While you try to cure one part, you aggravate the wound in other parts.

Hythloday’s statement resonates across 500 years for those concerned about the privatization of public health care in Europe today.

So, is private property (perhaps also privacy) incompatible with a healthy society?

Jennifer Rust has analysed the health-care regime in Utopia in detail. She finds that the Latin word More used for ‘health’, salus, has three senses. It refers to ‘the physical health of the individual body’, ‘the wider welfare of the commonwealth’, and also ‘spiritual salvation’.[3]

More’s understanding of the concept of health then has to do with at least three of the heuristic zones of Mette Birkedal Bruun’s phenomenological approach to privacy: soul/self, body and state.[4]

Appropriately enough: health (like disease) resists the arbitrary borders that humans construct between individual selves, peoples, and countries, as the WHO definition makes clear[5]:

Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.

Importantly, Rust also finds More’s thought experiment to contain the ideological seeds of modern public health systems. Drawing on Foucault’s writings on biopolitics, she argues that Utopia dramatizes a sixteenth-century crisis in the notion of the pastoral, which was being challenged by the enclosures. Not only is privatization of the commons making shepherds and sheep the agents of the landlords’ expropriation of the peasants. Abbots of the Church are among the private landholders; so they have abandoned their pastoral duty by participating in the terror of the ‘devouring’ sheep.

In Utopia, the remedy is the transference of pastoral power to the Utopian state which organizes excellent health care for all, with four hospitals provided outside each town, mini-towns of their own that offer excellent care for soul, body and community.

The cost of the state’s assumption of responsibility for health is that there is no privacy nor private property anywhere.

In fact, my reading of Utopia finds that there are some contradictions to the complete elimination of privacy. Those who practise a minority religion are allowed to worship privately in private homes; which suggests that the open doors of houses must sometimes remain closed.

In the hospitals too, there is a regime of private enclosure. The sick are confined to one part of the hospitals with lots of space to keep them from infecting the travellers who also stay there. The space of the hospitals themselves is also private, in the sense that they are located away from the towns to ensure a measure of quarantine against infectious diseases.

Hythloday exaggerates when he claims there is no privacy anywhere in Utopia. It is true that there is a radical limitation on individual privacy. But there is also, by comparison with contemporary England, a rearrangement of the privacy regime. The spaces and borders of privacy between individuals and parts of society have been reorganized.

Privacy is not only about the sole individual. In Bruun’s understanding, it is ‘the practice and experience of withdrawal, boundary drawing, and control of access’[4]. By definition, control implies others from which the individual (or individuals) withdraws, as in when the sick are withdrawn to the hospital.

Utopia warns readers that both private property and privacy might be incompatible with good health and the healthy society, in circumstances where due care has not been paid to their governance.

Utopia is a thought experiment. In practice, there might be a sweet spot between the extremes. It is for readers to think about how regimes of privacy might be renegotiated to ensure a better balance between public and private interests; and better health for individuals as well as for communities.

References

1. Thomas More, Utopia, ed. by George M. Logan, trans. by Robert M. Adams, 3rd edn (Cambridge University Press, 2018).

2. Denis Veiras, The History of the Sevarambians: A Utopian Novel, ed. by John Christian Laursen and Cyrus Masroori (State University of New York Press, 2006), p. 261.

3. Jennifer R. Rust, ‘Ad Salutem Publicam: Public Health and Pastoral Government in More’s Utopia’, Textual Practice, 37.5 (2023), pp. 706–24.

4. Mette Birkedal Bruun, ‘Towards an Approach to Early Modern Privacy: The Retirement of the Great Condé’, in Early Modern Privacy: Sources and Approaches, ed. by Michaël Green, Lars Cyril Nørgaard, and Mette Birkedal Bruun (Brill, 2022), pp. 12–60.

5. World Health Organization, ‘Constitution’. https://www.who.int/about/governance/constitution.

From healing to healthcare: How my interest in witchcraft in colonial India paved the way for a research project on pharmacological prospecting and patents

It was at a conference dinner in Rome in November 2022 that I quite surreptitiously stumbled upon the idea for a postdoctoral project. It had been two years since I had successfully defended a doctoral thesis which had looked at the literary evolution of the figure generally known as the Fairy King (or perhaps as Oberon, especially for those fed on a diet of Shakespeare and Anglophone literature), and although I had had vague ideas about how to continue the project, the pressures of a global pandemic, caregiving responsibilities, and the rigours of full-time teaching had ensured that each idea eventually died of asphyxiation. During my research for the thesis, I had discovered that in the British Isles in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, fairies often appeared in connection with witch trials, particularly in Scotland where suspected ‘witches’ often claimed during interrogation that they had been led astray by fairy men.[1] Although the study of witch trials featuring fairies was beyond the scope of my thesis, I had argued that fairies had lost their fearsome aspect and dread potential precisely because the Protestant Reformation had led to a recalibration of cultural values whereby the fear of the supernatural had been offset from creations of the imagination—such as fairies—to tangible terrestrial beings—such as the figure of the witch, who came to be regarded as the Devil’s human ally and earthly agent. As my interest in early modern English witchcraft peaked, a concomitant question arose in my mind: given that the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries saw both the augmenting of the witch craze and the first European experiments with colonial expansion, could the two have informed each other? Specifically, I wanted to explore if the social, cultural, legal, and religious attitudes towards witchcraft concurrent in seventeenth-century England could have possibly been transmitted to India through the voyages of the East India Company and, if yes, to what extent they influenced the field of witchcraft in India. As I shared these ideas with Natacha Klein Käfer inside a trattoria in the Piazza del Popolo, I was strongly encouraged by her to develop the idea into a project which could potentially be hosted by the Centre for Privacy Studies and funded through a Marie Skłodowska Curie (MSCA) Postdoctoral Fellowship.

Through the summer of 2023, I worked on what would eventually culminate as a project tentatively entitled “Witchcraft and Dakini-Tantra: A Post/Colonial History of Witchcraft in West Bengal.” For this project, I chose to do a two-pronged study of the discursive field of witchcraft in the Indian state of West Bengal (which also happens to be my home state) by first looking at the development of the field under the experience of British colonialism and subsequently at the way in which the field has proliferated in the shadowy interstices between official (‘public’) sanction and informal (‘private’) belief in the decades following India’s independence from British rule in 1947. This project was intended to break new ground in multiple ways: first, it would bring the field of witchcraft in India within the purview of witchcraft studies which is still characterised by an overwhelmingly Eurocentric focus, thus participating in prescient conversations about the need to decolonise entrenched disciplinary perspectives; second, it would use the theoretical lens of historical privacy studies to analyse witchcraft not as a fossilised remnant of a remote past but as a contemporary cultural concern by bringing present-day practitioners of witchcraft in Bengal within its ambit to investigate the ways in which they function in the contested arena between balancing private praxis and public regulation; third, and most importantly, it would offer a corrective to the traditional view of witchcraft as only an instrument of caste and gender oppression by redefining witchcraft as a semiotic field of transgressive femininity, a space of resistance used by many Indian women—especially lower-caste women—to wrest for themselves a measure of agency by their decision to choose witchcraft as both economic vocation and societal problem-solving. Although I submitted the project for evaluation for the MSCA fellowship rounds in both 2023 and 2024, I was unfortunately unsuccessful in securing a grant. However, the lack of success ironically turned out to be the trigger for a related albeit very different trajectory: a critical focus on the appropriation and use of indigenous healing knowledges in India.

A typical advertisement for ‘witchcraft’ services in West Bengal. Image taken from author’s own image gallery.

One of the ways in which witchcraft practitioners advertise their services is to offer their clients the use of their expertise in the ingredients, practices, and methodologies of bodily healing as a way to offset problems such as lack of fertility or sexual incontinence (usually glossed as “conjugal problems”). While the typical solution is to claim mastery over supernatural means (such as spirit possession and/or summoning, voodoo, and black magic), the utilisation of indigenous zoological and botanical material is occasionally recommended, especially when the issue in question has a biological/physiological provenance. While this would have been just one of the aspects I would have delved in to as part of the MSCA project, the two disparate parts of the project—the colonial context of witchcraft and indigenous healing knowledges in present-day witchcraft practice—dovetailed in the project entitled “Secrets to Patents: Trans-Imperial Strategies for Keeping Medicines as Private Assets from 1500 to 1900,” a collaborative research project between Lund University, Sweden, the Centre for Privacy Studies, University of Copenhagen, and the Universidade Federal de Santa Maria, Brazil led by Dr Klein Käfer herself. This project aims to offer a historical understanding of how colonial regimes in the Atlantic and Indian Ocean worlds appropriated indigenous medicinal and pharmacological knowledges and repackaged them in ways that laid the foundations for the pharmaceutical and healthcare-for-profit industries.

Roughly structured in a tripartite form (the secrecy claim, which relied on gatekeeping/restricting access to knowledge as a means of wielding power by exclusivity; the discovery claim, which relied on claiming ownership of knowledge via the primacy of innovation and novelty; and the Intellectual Property Rights claim, which relied on legal and administrative safeguards to simultaneously assert ownership and exclude access by other parties), the project will investigate how clandestine resource extraction in territories occupied by colonial powers gradually gave way to systematic expropriation and eventually to the establishment of an industrial complex which excluded the very demographics and populations that it profited off. As a postdoctoral researcher, my task will be to focus on British-occupied India as a test case, exploring ways in which indigenous healing knowledges were understood, (mis)appropriated, and utilised under colonial administration and the ways in which such knowledges were imbricated in the global flow of medicinal knowledge under the experience of imperialism. However, my intention is not so much to focus on the British colonial administration as to understand how indigenous actors formed a crucial part of this knowledge network under British colonial rule. For instance, during the preliminary research for this field, I have discovered a compendious volume entitled Bhaishajya Ratnavali, a work on the materia medica of India written in Bengali which had been compiled by Durgadas Kar and posthumously published by his son Radhagobinda Kar.  Durgadas had been a physician and teacher at the Calcutta Medical College and had authored one of the first medical textbooks in Bengali. His son followed in his footsteps, augmenting his training in medicine with a stint in Edinburgh and establishing the Calcutta School of Medicine in 1886.[2] By focusing on texts such as the Bhaishajya Ratnavali (on which scholarship has been conspicuously missing), I intend to shed light on how individuals such as Radhagobinda formed a conduit between indigenous iterations of medicinal knowledge and the British colonial administration at the turn of the nineteenth century. Doing so will hopefully decentre the primacy of the colonialist regime, relegating colonial players to one of the nodes of the trans-imperial knowledge network while underscoring how the robustness of this network was maintained by the indigenous sources and their native users. Therefore, by a fortuitous configuration of events, I have returned to geographic and cultural roots which, although planted during an unsuccessful harvest cycle a few years ago, have finally begun to bud.

Title page of Bhaishajya Ratnavali. Image taken from archive.org

[1] See Diane Purkiss, “Birth and Death: Fairies in Scottish Witch-trials,” in At the Bottom of the Garden: A Dark History of Fairies, Hobgoblins, and Other Troublesome Things (New York: New York University Press, 2003), 85–115.

[2] https://www.theweek.in/news/india/2024/08/24/dr-rg-kar-the-mastermind-who-established-asias-first-private-medical-college-and-hospital.html

Delving for Privacy: Digital Humanities, Databases, LLMs, and Voyant

Featured Image: Mining (ca. 1916) – Louis Schaettle (1867-1917) 

When we look at notions of privacy across a large corpus of literary sources, a rich tapestry of different nuances emerges. In this blogpost we will delve into digital methodologies that can be used to explore such a corpus. Some researchers have embraced digital methodologies as these methods’ usefulness and dynamic nature resonate with their perspectives and pursuits. Others see these digital tools – especially LLMs (large language models) – as testaments of academic degeneration and a threat to academic integrity. In this text we hope to challenge and leverage these concerns against the digital by showing the utility that a digital approach can bring. The intention of this text is to captivate potential users of digital methodologies by showing how digital tools such as text-mining, but also to some degree LLMs, can elevate traditional historical approaches. 

You might be thinking that the paragraph you just read seemed a bit off? The keen-eyed would have noticed a few words that today should ring warning bells as indicators of a text having been manipulated, or even wholly written by, an LLM. It is in fact not; but it has purposely been written to resemble one. One of the main tells would be the fact that the paragraph contains, by intention, the top ten words most commonly used by ChatGPT. (1) The same year ChatGPT was released to a broader public, 2023, an enormous spike appeared in the usage of the LLMs preferred words within academic articles. The word “delve” for example was used in close to six times as many publications in 2023 compared to previous years. (2) The critique that there is a threat to academic integrity is therefore not unfounded, nor untrue. As a response, especially in regard to how common generative text has become within student assignments and projects, many teachers across the educational system are currently working towards an intelligent and nuanced integration of AI and other digital tools within the humanities. However, one of the general reactions among scholars in the humanities has been one of fear and adamant resistance, and proponents of zero tolerance policies when it comes to using AI are numerous. It is easy to criticize what we do not understand, but it is also hard to argue how to regulate something without any personal experience. Do these LLMs really only pose a threat to academia? In many cases the answer is yes, but in some we can see a non-intrusive and plagiarism-free utility with these LLMs.

This post is not meant to belittle the very real problems that come with LLMs and AI-plagiarism but rather to show how some parts of LLMs, and other digital tools, can be used to both support and effectivize traditional approaches in the humanities. The digital methodology, and the associated tools, that will be presented here relate to the navigation and identification of relevant passages within a large and varied text corpus that would otherwise be hard, or even impossible, to grasp with traditional close-reading methods. We take our point of departure in the methodology developed for Viktor Wretström’s PhD-thesis Reaching and Breaching Privacy in Garden Spaces which is applicable for any analysis of a larger corpora of digitalized texts. The core concept in this methodology is text analysis through digital tools, or more specifically, text-mining through the software Voyant.

In Reaching and Breaching Privacy in Garden Spaces the central concepts relate to privacy in garden spaces. This is pursued in a longue dureé perspective from antiquity to the medieval period and over a wide geographical region surrounding the greater Mediterranean area. The project is part of the Centre for Privacy Studies and is situated within the field of history. This article is a collaborative effort of Wretström together with Julia Kjellgren Sten and Ellen Saarinen, both of whom were research interns on the project during the fall of 2025. In the PhD-project Voyant is utilized to search for keywords related to garden spaces to effectively locate passages that are connected with either reaching, or the breaching, of privacy within these spaces. During their internship Kjellgren Sten and Saarinen worked with the preparation and categorization of sources, as well as adding new sources from other databases to the PhD-project database.

Picture of the three privacy interns.
The privacy interns (from left to right) Gabriella Qvist (working for Natacha Klein Käfer), Ellen Saarinen and Julia Kjellgren Sten. Photo: Maj Riis Poulsen 2025.

Compared to traditional close readings of sources, this digital approach contributes an important factor related to scale; digital text analysis allows us to work with texts and corpora that would be too large to study through traditional close reading practices. (3) Digital tools can aid us in finding relevant passages in large bodies of text, thereby allowing us to conduct so-called “distant readings”. (4) A risk that comes with distant-reading is the fact that macroscopic approaches to sources can both disenfranchise the scholar from the corpora that they study and make it hard to contextualise the text they find within their “big data”. (5) At the same time big data approaches can give us a false sense of security as highlighted by literary scholars Ryan Heuser and Long Le-Khac “even with millions of texts, the evidence generated can still be anecdotal.” (6) To avoid this disenfranchisement we have followed a middling approach, sometimes called a mixed method large-scale text analysis. This method uses both so-called distant reading – that is, text-mining – to identify and find passages that are of relevance for the study but also uses more traditional historical approaches – close-reading – once these passages have been identified and categorized. (7)

A general problem we face with a textual digital approach is the conflict between what is called signal and concept. Signal is defined as the data, the words that are being identified by the digital tool, and concept is the phenomenon that signal is meant to represent. Because the tools can only measure the signal – i.e. the words – it is up to the digital scholar’s analysis to bridge this gap between signal and concept. This is primarily done by applying traditional approaches to the digital textual findings; close-readings and contextualisation. For example, the signals used for the thesis this text is based on are not directly related to its concept – privacy. The signals that are used are instead related to the locus, the gardens, in which we can look for the concept – issues and notions of privacy. 

Picture of a warning sign infront of a lake in a city park. The sign has an image of two ducks and some bread crumbs, and next to this image is an image of a rat with a large red cross over it.
The problem with Signal and Concept visualized. The sign is attempting to tell you “don’t feed the ducks, because it will attract rats, and we don’t want rats.” The concept is more complicated than the signals are able to convey due to their need to be simple in design. Those without prior knowledge of the correlation between bird-feeding and the appearance of rats are left in the dark by unclear signalling and therefore cannot find the concept being communicated. Photo: Stadsparken, Lund, Viktor Wretström 2025.

This relates to the earlier mentioned issue between signal and concept. Many concepts that we look for within the humanities are abstract or complex and therefore hard to “pin down” with a single or even several different signals. In general we can approach this from two angles: one direct and one indirect. The first is attempting to find signals that match the concept as closely as possible – for example the terminological approach to finding privacy through priv*-words. The second, applied in the thesis project, is using a signal that locates the concept in the proximity of that signal. In this approach we can look for the concept by using signals that help us find locations, individuals, spaces or other objects which we expect to be related to different notions and issues of privacy. This is more related to the approach of finding privacy through the heuristic zones – through for example different privacy related loci – or through interlinked words that are related to notions of privacy as done in the approach of semantic mapping for privacy.  (8)

A requirement for any digital approach relating to source texts is that the digital tools themselves can read and use the text that is to be analysed. This readability is directly related to something known as OCR (optical character recognition) which measures how well a program can recognize individual characters and written language from, for example, a scanned document. The programme Voyant, which is used for this project, is a text analysis tool that reads texts and returns data; for example, word frequencies, co-occurrence mapping, phrase pairings, and topic modelling.  (9) To utilize Voyant at its fullest requires texts that are already transcribed or documented with a high quality and clear OCR-readability. Where can we find such sources we might ask. Well, the internet!

Online databases are exceptional treasure troves of textual sources, particularly for texts with expired or non-existent copyrights. There are a multitude of such databases and their quality and focus can differ quite a bit. While some are specialized on certain topics, others are more general, and whereas some are small and organized others are enormous and chaotic. Some databases are part of research projects or hosted by universities while others lean more heavily on hobbyist and crowd-sourcing efforts. Due to this non-conformity of online collections, it can at times be challenging to find and verify what a database contains. For this reason, a more conventional source critical approach will always be required when working with the texts in these databases. It is important to be aware of when, where, and – if possible – by whom the text was written, as well as by whom it was transcribed and uploaded. This information is not always provided by the website and must thereby be found through other sources. Specifically for this project, when a text in an online database has been flagged as relevant, it is logged and saved in a separate database maintained for the project. Here metadata regarding the spatial, cultural, and temporal origin of the sources is noted to make later processing, analysis, and trackability easier.

Since the project will remain active over several years, the continued availability of these sources must be guaranteed. To ensure that access to the sources will not be compromised if the original website becomes unavailable, a backup is essential. In some cases, this can be achieved by the simple act of copying and pasting text from the website into a document. Paradoxically, the more developed and user-friendly an archive is, generally, the more difficult it is to extract the data. A typical example of such an archive is Wikisource, where the text is often divided into multiple subchapters linked to the main index page, and the time-consuming, tedious task of transferring the text by opening each and every link, can be intimidating, if not a complete waste of human resources. 

Through programming languages, such as Python, a so-called scraper script can be created to request a data extraction from a chosen website. As historians, we are seldom well-versed in coding, which is why LLMs like ChatGPT can prove useful in producing functioning scripts. The LLM will simply write, and produce, a functioning script for you in seconds if prompted correctly. Here the challenge is communicating the specifics of the requested script to the AI. Different websites and databases vary in structure, and factors such as HTML and other metadata must be accounted for in each script. Depending on previous experience, or lack thereof, it can be difficult to know what information the AI needs in order to produce successful results. The process may therefore initially involve some troubleshooting and trial-and-error approaches with the script. Once a working script exists, it can be run and the “scraped” text gets copied, ready for use. A scraper can extract and copy text from thousands of links resulting in several thousands of pages of text in the matter of minutes.  

Once the sources have been prepared and backed-up, we enter them into a digital text-analysis tool, in this case Voyant, for text-mining. Keywords relating to garden spaces – signal – are then used to find relevant passages – concept – within the prepared and backed-up sources. The text-mining for this project is therefore mainly reliant on only one of Voyant’s many functions: keyword searchers. Voyant both simplifies and widens the scope of the regular word-search available in most word processing programmes by allowing one to search for several keywords simultaneously across an entire corpus. (10) The found passages that relate to garden spaces are then collected in a separate “garden space”-database where it can be further analysed, through close-readings, to identify and categorize different notions and issues of privacy that occur within these garden spaces. 

In summary, the digital approach of large-scale text analysis through text-mining tools such as Voyant, can help us expedite the processes of finding passages in our sources while at the same time allowing us to look at sources that would otherwise have been ignored because of the size, or pre-perceived idea of non-relevance. At the same time it effectivizes traditional methodologies – such as close-readings – by allowing us to quickly locate passages that are of interest and value to our research. As scholars within the humanities, we need to start changing our perspective on both digital tools and on LLMs; both are here to stay and will change the academic world with or without us. The approach should not be one of complete acceptance and surrender to the pervasive and plagiaristic nature of generative text; but rather one of understanding and interest in how we can utilize these tools in an academically correct way to effectivize and broaden academic research.

(1) These ten words are: explore, captivate, tapestry, leverage, embrace, resonate, dynamic, testament, delve, elevate (https://aiphrasefinder.com/common-chatgpt-words/).

(2) Shapira 2024 (https://pshapira.net/2024/03/31/delving-into-delve/).

(3) Sinclair and Rockwell 2012, 242–244; Wiedemann 2013, 335; Meister 2023, 216.

(4) Cf. Varela 2021, 83–84.

(5) Drouin 2014, 110-111.

(6) Heuser and Le-Khac 2011, 80-81.

(7) Cf. Carr Jones 2018; Howard 2018; Gitre, Kramer, Dawson and Korkmaz 2023.

(8) Bruun 2021.

(9) Voyant is only one of many tools with these types of functions. See Martin 2019 and Klein Käfer 2025 for examples of topic modeling with the digital tool MALLET.

(10) For examples of research relying on other functions of Voyant see Posthumus 2016, Rambsy 2016, Luo 2020 and Swisher 2020.

Bibliography

AI Phrase Finder. 2025. “10 Most Common ChatGPT Words.” https://aiphrasefinder.com/common-chatgpt-words/

Bruun, M. B. 2021. “The Centre for Privacy Studies Work Method.” Centre for Privacy Studies. https://teol.ku.dk/privacy/research/work-method/

Carr Jones, P. 2018. “Mining the ICC: Macroanalysis of the Indian Claims Commission” Current Research in Digital History 1.

Gitre, E.J.K., B.L. Kramer, C. Dawson, and G. Korkmaz “Across the Color Line: Using Text Networks to Examine Black and White US Soldiers’ Views on Race and Segregation during World War II.” Current Research in Digital History 6.

Heuser, R. and L. Le-Khac. 2011. “Learning to Read Data: Bringing out the Humanistic in the Digital Humanities.” Victorian Studies 54(1): 79–86.

Klein Käfer, N. 2025. “Private Birth, Public Authority: Topic Changes from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century in German Midwifery Books.” Current Research in Digital History 8.

Luo, J. 2020. “Trade and Missionary Work: A Word Frequency Analysis of Dialogues and Detached Sentences in the Chinese Language (1816) and the Pedagogy of Robert Morrison.” Comparative Literature Studies 57(3): 384–397.

Martin, J. 2018. “Talk-Back Boards and Text Mining: New Digital Approaches in Museum Visitor Studies.” Current Research in Digital History 1.  

Meister, J.C. 2023. “From TACT to CATMA; or, a Mindful Approach to Text Annotation and Analysis.” In On Making in the Digital Humanities: The scholarship of digital humanities development in honour of John Bradley, edited by J. Nyhan, G. Rockwell, S. Sinclair, and A. Ortolja-Baird. 213–250. London: UCL Press.

Posthumus, S. 2016. “Reader-Player-User: Engaging Bruno Latour’s AIME Project.” Resilience: A Journal of the Environmental Humanities 4(1): 137–143.

Rambsy, K. 2016. “Text-Mining Short Fiction by Zora Neale Hurston and Richard Wright using Voyant Tools.” CLA Journal 59(3): 251–258.

Shapira, P. 2024. “Delving into ‘delve’.” Philip Shapira. https://pshapira.net/2024/03/31/delving-into-delve/

Shawn, M. 2019. “Topic Modeling and Textual Analysis of American Scientific Journals, 1818–1922.” Current Research in Digital History 2.

Sinclair, S. and G. Rockwell. 2012. “Teaching Computer-Assisted Text Analysis: Approaches to Learning New Methodologies.” In Digital Humanities Pedagogy: Practices, Principles and Politics, edited by B.D. Hirsch. 241–264. Cambridge: Open Book Publishers.

Swisher, J. 2020. “A Tale of Three Valleys Text Mining, Spatial Analysis, and the Contested Geographies of Colorado and New Mexico’s San Luis Valley” Current Research in Digital History 3.

Varela, M. 2021. “Words as Data.” In Theater as Data: Computational Journeys into Theater Research, edited by M. Varela. 75–93. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Wiedemann, G. 2013. “Opening up to Big Data: Computer-Assisted Analysis of Textual Data in Social Sciences.” Historical Social Research/Historiche Sozialforschung 38(4): 332–357.

The Privacy Paradox Reinterpreted

The notion of the privacy paradox is weaving its way through society, finding adherents left and right. Although it initially referred to the paradoxical situation that to protect people with certain private characteristics you need to register them,* most people know the privacy paradox as a label for the discrepancy between people claiming to want privacy and the supposed negligence with which they give private information away. For instance, the privacy paradox is used to describe how people who say they would not like to share personal data with just anyone freely, nevertheless maintain Instagram or TikTok accounts on which they publish a lot of their everyday behaviour, from their morning coffee to intimate late-night musings.

There are a good number of reasons why there is actually not much of a paradox in that latter situation. For instance, people do not actually get an opportunity to express their real data-sharing preferences when using social media: they have to make do with the restricted options in settings that social media platforms allow them. Another reason is that people do curate what they put on social media and what not, so their behaviour is not entirely out of line with their preferences. A third reason is that social media companies try their utmost best to keep it unclear to users what is really done with the personal data they gather: which data exactly they collect, with whom exactly they share information about their users, how exactly they use those data themselves, and for what exact purposes, and so on. As a user, you do not truly know what you are getting into when you put information about yourself on social media. In brief, this is not a paradox, but a conundrum.

If we are going to reinterpret the notion of the privacy paradox anyway, let’s look at another paradox: companies that claim to “value your privacy” but in actual practice do not care at all, or if they do value your privacy, it is because they can put a price tag on it.

A well-known large technology company that has made a marketing strategy out of privacy promises is Apple. The company’s ads carry the slogan: “Privacy. That’s iPhone.” Paradoxically, Apple’s practices speak an entirely different language. For example, it introduced an App Tracking Transparency framework for the operating system of the iPhone in 2021 that allows users to refuse data processing and sharing by apps in its App Store – but refusing Apple’s own user tracking is not on the table. In the years following the introduction of the ATT framework, while iPhone users massively refused tracking by apps, Apple more than tripled its share in advertising profits on the iPhone. After all, they were now the number one source of data on their users. Apple made billions in advertising income this way.

In my latest paper for the Privacy Studies Journal, I have detailed a method to analyse such practices. I argue in the paper that we should consider these practices as a form of discourse. Beyond the words that a company like Apple uses to convince us of its intentions, we need to study its actions, because a technology platform’s practices also communicate something and it may be something else than its words. Just like the social media settings that restrict how users can express their privacy preferences, the technological infrastructure of a large digital platform restricts the meaning of privacy for its users. In that respect, we need to remember that the users of the operating system for iPhones are not just consumers who have bought a smartphone, but also digital service providers, app developers, advertising companies, and others. All these users have to deal with the restrictions that Apple imposes on how privacy can be understood in practice within its environment. While Apple’s environment has been called a digital “walled garden”, when it comes to privacy I call it a “framed garden”, because it frames the meaning of privacy in a way that serves Apple best.

Apple’s competitors filed complaints with competition authorities, of course. Meta, the company that owns WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook, was particularly unhappy, because already in the first year after the introduction of the ATT framework it lost around 10 billion dollars in advertising income. Not many iPhone users agreed to let Meta have their personal data. Meta does not run ads proclaiming it cares about your privacy, its CEO famously once claimed privacy is not a social norm anymore, and we have all heard about the various privacy scandals that Facebook has been embroiled in. Apparently, users do care as much about their privacy as they claim, when they get a choice and when they are informed about what happens.

In March 2025, the complaints against Apple’s ATT framework even led to a fine from the French Competition Authority of 150 million euros. The Authority took into account that although the intention to protect iPhone users’ privacy was in itself laudable, the ATT framework did not comply with European laws on the protection of personal data. The Authority did not go so far as to conclude that Apple probably never truly had the intention to protect users’ privacy but it does conclude that since this protection was not aligned with the law, it must have mainly served anti-competitive purposes.

The fine for Apple made news headlines, but not front pages. Apple denies the charges and continues to claim it is a privacy champion. Everything is relative, of course: as smartphone users we have the choice between iPhones, phones that have Google’s Android as an operating system, or no smartphone at all. Not great choices if you value your privacy but also still want to live in a society that is increasingly digitalizing and appifying. Even if you are informed, you do not get to express your real privacy preferences.

And so, the interpretation of the privacy paradox in which we, as users, are painted as inconsistent fools, persists. It is about time we turn the tables and address the real paradox.

 

 

* I have Prof. Irina Shklovski to thank for reminding me of this historical background of the privacy paradox.

 

Works consulted:

Bacchi, Carol, and Jennifer Bonham. “Reclaiming Discursive Practices as an Analytic Focus: Political Implications.” Foucault Studies, (April 30, 2014): 179–92, https://doi.org/10.22439/fs.v0i17.4298.

Greene, Daniel, and Katie Shilton. “Platform Privacies: Governance, Collaboration, and the Different Meanings of ‘Privacy’ in iOS and Android Development.” New Media & Society 20, no. 4 (2018): 1640–57.

Hadar, Irit, Tomer Hasson, Oshrat Ayalon, Eran Toch, Michael Birnhack, Sofia Sherman, and Arod Balissa. “Privacy by Designers: Software Developers’ Privacy Mindset.” Empirical Software Engineering 23, no. 1 (February 2018): 259–89. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10664-017-9517-1.

Hardy, Cynthia, and Robyn Thomas. “Discourse in a Material World.” Journal of Management Studies 52, no. 5 (2015): 680–96. https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12113.

Kollnig, Konrad, Reuben Binns, Pierre Dewitte, Max Van Kleek, Ge Wang, Daniel Omeiza, Helena Webb, and Nigel Shadbolt. “A Fait Accompli? An Empirical Study into the Absence of Consent to Third-Party Tracking in Android Apps.” In Proceedings of the Seventeenth Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security (SOUPS 21), 181–96, 2021.

Kollnig, Konrad, Anastasia Shuba, Max Van Kleek, Reuben Binns, and Nigel Shadbolt. “Goodbye Tracking? Impact of iOS App Tracking Transparency and Privacy Labels.” In 2022 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency, 508–20.FAccT ’22. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1145/3531146.3533116.

McGuigan, Lee, Sarah Myers West, Ido Sivan-Sevilla, and Patrick Parham. “The after Party: Cynical Resignation in Adtech’s Pivot to Privacy.” Big Data & Society 10, no. 2 (July 1, 2023): 20539517231203665. https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517231203665.

Orlikowski, Wanda J., and Susan V. Scott. “Exploring Material-Discursive Practices.” Journal of Management Studies 52, no. 5 (2015): 697–705. https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12114.

Pierson, Jo. “Digital Platforms as Entangled Infrastructures: Addressing Public Values and Trust in Messaging Apps.” European Journal of Communication 36, no. 4 (August 2021): 349–61. https://doi.org/10.1177/02673231211028374.

Plantin, Jean-Christophe, Carl Lagoze, Paul N Edwards, and Christian Sandvig. “Infrastructure Studies Meet Platform Studies in the Age of Google and Facebook.” New Media & Society 20, no. 1 (January 2018): 293–310. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444816661553.

My Humanoid Robot replaced all my Smart Home Devices: How Data Convergence Shifts the Risk of Ambient Domestic Surveillance

This image is of a Unitree G1 Edu standing in the hallway of a classic Viennese apartment building.
Tova, Emily’s Humanoid Robot.

I am an AI researcher who has embarked upon an immersive experiment where I am living alongside a humanoid robot for one year at my residence in Vienna, Austria. Through written works, speeches and appearances, I am engaging with the public regarding my experience in order to empower others to join in the ethical and legal debates surrounding global robotic adoption. No matter the scale: national, regional, community or household, there are certain standards that must be agreed upon in order to safely scaffold the inclusion of robots into our world. Through my research, I analyse these topics and bring forth discussions from a variance of perspectives ranging from gender politics and robot personhood to taxation structures and legal liability. By actually living alongside the robot, these abstract conceptual debates are transformed into practical discussions where those who may not be in the robotics field can voice their opinions through their views on my real life experiences.

One of the most asked questions about my experience is, “Do you feel like it’s watching you?” The answer is that I don’t necessarily feel more “watched.” As someone who has an iPhone permanently in my hand, who has had an Amazon Alexa for nearly a decade, who has a pet camera for watching my dog when I’m at the University and who uses a roomba to keep my apartment tidy, I am keenly aware of each ounce of privacy that I give up in order to bring ease and efficiency into my life.  It is because of this that I don’t feel an increase in the sense of privacy that I am trading in for the adoption of a domestic robot into my home.  That feeling, however, is just one part of a much more complex story.  It’s not necessarily about whether or not I feel more watched but who winds up having control over the data that is being collected about my life from the devices I engage with in my home.

Domestic humanoid robotics gather data just like any other device that you may use but in contrast, these humanoid robotics centralize a wide range of behavioral data types into a single integrated system.  This differs from the fragmented metadata collection and siloed data stewardship of the domestic technology of the present day.  The consolidation of these data streams represents a monumental shift in the ethical landscape of domestic privacy, not due to the amount or types of data collected but in its centralized form as a context-rich, complete dataset enabling behavioral and predictive modeling at an unprecedented scale.  The unification of this data exponentially increases the potential for manipulation and the vulnerability of the cybersecurity of adopters.

Humanoid robotics are actually designed to cannibalize the domestic technology that came before them. Your robot should be able to clean for you, replacing your roomba.  It should be able to answer your door, replacing your Ring doorbell. It should be able to adjust the thermostat, replacing your Nest device.  It should be able to answer questions for you, replacing Siri.  This consolidation is efficient but in this case, would mean that the data collected from your robot would be in one company’s hands rather than four.  That means that the LiDAR scans of your layout, the video footage of your guests, the quantitative-time sensitive logs of your daily routine and the ambient collection of your family’s conversations would all converge into the hands of one entity.

The formerly siloed metadata would now be organized into a comprehensive dataset ripe for analysis, predictive modeling, sale and potential exploitation. Rather than one company knowing the fragmented and non contextualized notion that one of their users had a visitor at the door one afternoon or one company knowing that you changed the temperature in your home or one company knowing that there was an additional unidentified voice in the house, now one company would know who the visitor was, where they went in the house, who they spoke to and potentially even what they said. It is not that the data wasn’t being collected before, but that now the data is consolidated and contextualized into a complete dataset.  This raises the concern of who has access to and owns this data as well as how they are able to use it.

With such a complete and contextualized dataset, there is an enhanced ability to predict behavior and therefore exploit users of this technology. Perhaps this predictive behavior comes in the form of a fairly accepted and relatively innocuous result like targeted advertising about relevant products. Sure, this could influence your spending habits as a consumer.  But let’s say this dataset was sold to an insurance company who could alter the price of your coverage with the information that they have about you raising the cost of your family’s health.  Alternatively, the domestic data you’ve gathered could be of interest to future landlords who may opt out of renting to you or adjust the pricing based on past behavioral modeling, placing affordable housing out of reach. Or perhaps the police could request information you may have captured about a local incident and resultantly gain access to a massive store of data about your daily life.  The government could subpoena the company storing the data to collect information and a mass of your most sensitive data would be at their fingertips.  Or in the worst case scenario, imagine a data breach of the storage and the ensuing full picture that could fall in the hands of a bad actor. The risk to your and your family’s cybersecurity when all of your data is contextualized, identifiable and consolidated is unprecedented.

The threats of exploitation due to the consolidation of data do not end with who may gain access and what they may do with the information. The next step beyond predictive data modeling is the concept of behavioral prompting. The exploitative use of a full picture of your home life to influence your behavior. This transforms the home technology from a recorder of your behavior into an enforcer or shaper of your behavior. The technology for this leap is already developed, patented and deployed by Google. US Patent 20160259308A1 allows for smart home devices to automatically implement home policies and scheduling based on previously observed behaviors. This could mean your domestic robot decides when you eat dinner as a family, or when your home is tidied and dimmed for the evening as you get ready to go to bed. The transfer of these head of household decisions represents a major shift in the role of home technology from assistant to enforcer.

Given the enormous increase in risk of surveillance, exploitation and cybersecurity breaches due to the convergence in home data from domestic robotics, one must know what protections are currently in place to mitigate the downsides of adoption. These protections come not from individual users’ contracts, nor the company’s policies themselves, but from legal and regulatory frameworks set forth by various levels of government oversight with a range of efficacy and breadth depending on where you live. The EU currently offers the most stringent regulation with its GDPR protection. This allows users to access, correct and erase data, maintains strict requirements for data minimization and purpose limitation, and ensures that a legal basis is necessitated for processing. A new amendment to Danish copyright legislation includes personal likeness in its protections to guard against unauthorized and potentially extortionate deepfakes using mined biometric data. The United States lacks a comparable comprehensive federal data protection law and instead relies on state to state protections like California’s CCPA/CPRA laws which are most similar to GDPR or FTC Protections which require unclear and costly post-hoc enforcement processes against unfair or deceptive practices in trade.

New proposals for legal protections for homes adopting domestic robotics must account for multi-person consent, data convergence, and the methods of how the data is collected, which is to note that it is passively observed in the “privacy” of one’s own home and not explicitly given. The potential data ownership models span three general forms: Corporate Ownership, Sole User Ownership and Robot as Agent. With the corporate ownership model, the company producing the robot stores and analyses the data on the company’s own servers and uses that to better train future models. However, the user would likely have to sign away their rights under the terms of service. In the sole user ownership model, the owner controls the robot’s memory which presents an asymmetry in power and control over other members of the household like spouses or children.  In the robot as agent ownership model, the robot is an autonomous data holder programmed with its own set of immutable rules.  This presents a number of other ethical issues when it comes to the robot withholding, sharing or deleting data based on predetermined protocols. The ultimate formula will likely wind up being a combination of these three, dubbed shared domestic data stewardship.  This is the only conceivable option that will protect all members of the household, yet it will likely take decades of refinement and dozens of legal precedents to hone.

In the meantime, adopters should look to work with companies guided by ethical design principles in order to protect themselves and their data.  These principles include the following:

Privacy by design so that the robot defaults to local processing rather than storing data on the cloud in addition to the absence of passive data retention without explicit consent.

Individualized permissions to account for the different subjects and their comfort levels and protections as secondary users, guests or minors.

Transparent memory controls which offer users the ability to see, edit and delete the data they have generated while interacting with the robot.

Adaptable and user friendly mechanisms for pausing or restricting observation during private or sensitive moments inside the house.

The early adopters like myself will set the tone for the privacy standards and ethics of data collection and management when domestic robotics enter the mass market.  It is imperative for everyone to join their voices in order to encourage data privacy protections of users from both sides: the governmental oversight regulating use and the ethical design of the robots themselves by producers. While these robots will not collect any new data that your current smart home devices don’t already gather, the consolidation and contextualization of this data represents an enormous shift in the privacy landscape and the design and regulation surrounding that increased risk must reflect its significance.

 

Works Consulted:

Cox, J. (2018, December 20). Amazon Sent 1,700 Alexa Voice Recordings to the Wrong User. Vice Motherboard. https://www.vice.com/en/article/amazon-sent-1700-alexa-recordings-to-the-wrong-person/

Duhigg, C. (2012, February 16). How Companies Learn Your Secrets. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.html

European Commission. (2021). Proposal for a Regulation Laying Down Harmonised Rules on Artificial Intelligence (Artificial Intelligence Act). https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/proposal-regulation-laying-down-harmonised-rules-artificial-intelligence

European Parliament and Council. (2016). General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Regulation (EU) 2016/679. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2016/679/oj/eng

Google LLC. (US Patent US10114351B2). Smart-Home Automation System That Suggests or Automatically Implements Selected Household Policies Based on Sensed Observations. https://patents.google.com/patent/US10114351B2/en

Hern, A. (2019, July 26). Apple contractors ‘regularly hear confidential details’ on Siri recordings. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jul/26/apple-contractors-regularly-hear-confidential-details-on-siri-recordings

Jensen, M. (2025, July 10). ‘Your face, your rights’: Denmark’s tough new deepfake law could change how AI imitations are handled across Europe. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/10/world/europe/denmark-deepfake-copyright-ai-law.html

Nissenbaum, H. (2010). Privacy in Context: Technology, Policy, and the Integrity of Social Life. Stanford University Press. JOURNAL OF INFORMATION POLICY 1 (2011): 149-151.

OECD. (2019). Recommendation of the Council on Artificial Intelligence. https://legalinstruments.oecd.org/en/instruments/oecd-legal-0449

Pole, A., et al. (US Patent US201600261932A1). Monitoring and Reporting Household Activities in the Smart Home. https://patents.google.com/patent/US20160261932A1/en

Thompson, S. A. (2022, December 19). The Secret Scandal Behind the Roomba Images. MIT Technology Review. https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/12/19/1065306/roomba-irobot-robot-vacuums-artificial-intelligence-training-data-privacy/amp/

UNESCO. (2021). Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence.https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/recommendation-ethics-artificial-intelligence

Inuit Grave Goods – Private Belongings in Historic Greenland II

Following my recent blog post on private and shared ownership of goods in historic Greenland, I will develop further on this topic by considering Inuit burial culture, examining what grave goods individuals were buried with, and what this tells us about understandings of private possessions in historic Greenland. 

Unlike the earlier ethnographical records that provide insights into rights allocation, the archaeological approach involves examining grave goods accompanying individuals, as these items serve as indicators of private property considerations connected to a particular person in contrast to items up for public use. In connection with communal graves, where multiple individuals have been laid to rest, the inventory physically ‘on’ the deceased, such as clothing, skins wrapped around the deceased, and items tugged in those skins or clothing, will, in this study, be considered ‘private,’ in the understanding that no one else than a specific individual owns these items.  

Fig. 1. Watercolor by Aron from Kangeq depicts how parents grieve by their child’s grave. Source: Hart Hansen, Meldgaard, and Nordqvist 1985: 64.  

The introduction of the Christian burial style mandated that the deceased should ideally be interred in a coffin placed in the ground and covered with soil or gravel. Before this, local communities laid their deceased to rest in stone-set chambers or in caves, or conducted burials at sea. The latter was an East Greenlandic tradition reportedly still observed around 1867, as exemplified by the words spoken to Aron from Kangeq: “If we bury him up here on earth, his soul will constantly suffer cold and need. Therefore, we will sink him where there is neither cold nor lack of food.” (Hansen, Meldgaard, and Nordqvist 1985: 65, translation AM). 

No overall inventory of the grave goods from the Inuit graves has been made, as many graves have simply been registered without being opened or examined further. Furthermore,  many of the Greenlandic Inuit’s grave goods were products of various organic materials, and this undoubtedly impacts the degree of preserved artifacts to be registered in modern times. It is mainly to be expected that grave goods consisting of skin and/or wood will be strongly underrepresented in the source material. However, grave goods consisting of biomaterials have allegedly been found in up to half of the examined graves (Grummesgaard 1997: 207). If the preservation conditions are taken into account, it is quite possible that practically all Greenlandic Inuit were buried with grave goods. Nothing indicates the deceased have not always been buried wearing their own clothes.  

Skin clothes are common for grave goods for adults of both sexes and children (one set worn by the deceased and, in some cases, an extra set of clothes or extra skins to follow) as well as amulets (either sewn into the clothes or placed separately among the other goods) (Hansen, Meldgaard, and Nordqvist 1985). Sometimes, in connection with the burial chamber itself, a side chamber was built where the grave goods were placed, but grave goods can also be placed above or outside the grave, just as objects are found between the graves’ outer stones (Grummesgaard 1997: 208).  

Fig. 2. In 1909, Greenlandic women and their children were photographed adorned in meticulously crafted skin clothing against the backdrop of a tent at their summer camp near Aasiaat. Source: Hansen, Meldgaard, and Nordqvist 1985: 194. 

 Women’s grave goods often consisted of their toolkits connected to clothing manufacturing (arched knives (called ulu), needles, needle houses, awls, and thimbles) and cooking (cooking pots, soapstone lamps) (Steenstrup 1893; Larsen 1934; Kramer 1990; Grummesgaard-Nielsen 1996a+b; Grønnow 2005). Women have also been put to rest with various ornaments, such as beautiful, locally produced beads or buttons of bone or ivory. Later, women’s grave goods also included European trade goods like buttons or beads of porcelain or glass (Mathiassen 1936; Koch and Feldbo 1994). 

Fig. 3. The iconic women’s knive, ulu, and the soapstone lamp, qulleq, were vital parts of the women’s tool kit, and could be found in graves for female individuals. Source: Jensen et al. 2020: 49. 

 The men’s grave goods span hunting gear (lances, spears, harpoon heads, bow and arrows, and throwing boards) and tools (knives, pickaxes, snow knives, and grindstones) (Birket-Smith 1924; Birket-Smith 1929, Feldbo et al. 1992; Grummesgaard-Nielsen 1996a+b; Grønnow 2005). On rare occasions, a whole kayak or sled has been placed in a side chamber next to the main chamber (Hansen, Meldgaard, and Nordqvist 1985: 156; Grummesgaard 1997: 209). 

Fig. 4. The arrowhead, suugaq, and the harpoon head, tuukkaq, are both part of the men’s tool kit and could be found in the graves for male individuals. Source: Jensen et al. 2017: 49. 

 In addition, it is not uncommon to find animal bones in connection with Greenlandic Inuit graves (Feldbo et al. 1993). These animal bones may be remnants of food offered to the dead (Mathiassen 1936: 16; Hansen, Meldgaard, and Nordqvist 1985: 70). Other times, the animal bones played a protective role, being a sort of amulet or guiding spirit to the deceased, as ethnographic accounts testify having a dog accompanying a child to the spirit world (Hansen, Meldgaard, and Nordqvist 1985: 70; Thalbitzer 1914). Other times, it results from arctic foxes secondarily using the graves as their den, and the animal bones simply testify to some of their meals (Koch and Feldbo 1994). 

Small collections of stones have also been registered in connection to burials and have been interpreted as decorations, amulets, or game pieces (Gulløv 1995: 14). Cores of clear quartz or tusks of marine animals have also been found in burials, which may have been given as presents or amulets (Mathiassen 1936: 21). In other parts of the Arctic, gifts presented to the deceased were often intentionally broken or ‘killed’ to facilitate the spirit’s success in hunting game in the afterlife (Parry 1824; Sonne 2018). However, in Greenland, the equipment was left intact, symbolizing its ‘living’ state, often placed outside the burial context near the grave (Hansen, Meldgaard, and Nordqvist 1985: 70).  

 In this context, it is crucial to distinguish between three different phenomena. Firstly, some objects are placed in the grave as personal belongings, utilized by the individual during their lifetime, and now allocated for use in the afterlife. Such items include hunting tools, utensils, and clothing. Secondly, some objects are placed in the grave, specifically after an individual’s death. These items are intended to express grief, signify the meaningful relationship shared, and demonstrate appreciation for shared memories. Alternatively, they may be provided to aid the deceased in their journey to the afterlife. Examples in this category encompass stones interpreted as game pieces and a puppy placed to assist a child in traversing to the other world. The last category involves objects left in the grave with the understanding that they will be eventually removed, as they are considered the rightful property of the deceased’s heirs. An example of this category is the physical amulets belonging to the buried individual. In such cases, a person named after the deceased, seen as the reincarnation of the departed, holds the right to retrieve an amulet that once belonged to their predecessor in a previous life. 

 Thus, the deceased has been buried with utility items that proved helpful in this life, which they would continue to use in the next life. However, some of these objects may also have had a direct sentimental value to the deceased, to the giver, or represent their relation. These objects represented nuanced understandings of private objects as they were meant to follow the deceased to the next world. Some possessions were from everyday life and were not unique but belonged to the deceased in a very material sense. Other possessions, such as amulets, belonged to the individual on a more symbolic level, being available to the reincarnate, thus having a specific connection to the soul rather than the lived life of the individual.  

Following my first blogpost, this archaeological investigation of Greenlandic Inuit’s burial culture underlines how most artefacts such as tools and clothing were privately owned by the individual. For longer stretches of the year, the Greenlandic Inuit lived in bigger family constellations, but here it was the practices of everyday life that were shared, rather than the material goods. Members of these family communities could help each other to gain necessary possessions, however, for example shown in the way experienced hunters would sometimes help less proficient hunters in their quest for prey. Material goods could also be privately owned in different ways, some being everyday tools that belonged to the individual in a corporal way, while others, such as amulets, belonged to the soul and were therefor available to the next reincarnation of a deceased individual. 

 

References 

Birket-Smith, K. 1929. Jens Munks Rejse og andre danske Ishavsfarter under Christian IV, Gyldendal, Copenhagen, 160 pp 

  • 1924. Ethnography of the Egedesminde District, with Aspects of the General Culture of West Greenland. In Meddelelser om Grønland, Vol. 66, No. 1 

Feldbo, M., Gotfredsen, A. B., Gulløv, H. C. and A. Koch 1993. Illuluarsuk. Rapport om det arkæologiske arbejde i Illuluarsuk regionen syd for Bernstoffs Isfjord, Ammassalik kommune, Sydøstgrønland, sommeren 1992, Copenhagen University 

Feldbo, M., Fog, J., Gotfredsen, A. B. and H. C. Gulløv 1992. Rapport om det arkæologiske arbejde i Skjoldungen, Ammassalik kommune, Sydøstgrønland, sommeren 1991, Copenhagen University and National Museum of Denmark 

Grummesgaard-Nielsen, S. 1997. Thulekulturens grave. In Tidsskriftet Grønland, 

Vol. 5, 1997 

  • 1996a. Arkæologiske undersøgelser i forbindelse med anlæggelsen af en lufthavn ved Sisimiut 1995. En rekognosceringsrapport for Grønlands Nationalmuseum og Arkiv 
  • 1996b. Arkæologiske undersøgelser i forbindelse med anlæggelsen af en lufthavn ved Sisimiut 1996. En rekognosceringsrapport for Grønlands Nationalmuseum og Arkiv 

Grønnow, B. 2005. Brudstykker af Baade og forarbeidede Steensager. Arktisk arkæologi. In Thisted, K. (ed.) Grønlandsforskning – Historie og perspektiver, Det Grønlandske Selskab 

Gulløv, H. C. 1995. “Olden times” in southeast Greenland: New archaeological investigations and the oral tradition. In Ètudes Inuit Studies, Vol. 19, pp. 3-36 

Hansen, J. P. H., Meldgaard, J. and J. Nordqvist 1985. Qilakitsoq, De grønlandske mumier fra 1400-tallet, Christian Ejler’s Forlag, København 

Holm, G. 1888. Etnologisk skizze af Angmagsalikerne. In Meddelelser om Grønland, Vol. 39, No. 1 

Jensen, J. F., C. Andreasen, P. Fleischer-Lyberth, L. Løgstrup, H. H. Poulsen, Ó. R. Ólafurson, A.-Ch. Løventoft-Jessen, S. Barr, and M. Meldgaard 2017. Aasivissuit-Nipisat – Inuit Hunting Ground between Ice and Sea, Rosendahls 

Koch, A. and M. Feldbo 1994. Thulekulturens grave. Forskning i Sydøstgrønland/Tusaat, 1-2/1994 

Kramer, F. E. 1990. Fortidsminder på nordsiden af Ulkebugten. En rekognosceringsrapport for Sisimiut Museum 

Larsen, H. 1934. Dødemandsbugten. An Eskimo Settlement on Clavering Island. Treaarsexpeditionen til Christian den X’s Land 1931-34. In Meddelelser om Grønland, Vol. 102, No. 1 

Mathiassen, T. 1936. The Eskimo Archaeology of the Julianehaab District. In Meddelelser om Grønland, Vol. 118, No. 1 

Parry, W. E. 1824. Journal of a Second Voyage for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage From the Atlantic to the Pacific, J. Murray, London 

Sonne, B. 2018. Worldviews of the Greenlanders – An Inuit Arctic Perspective, University of Alaska Press 

Steenstrup, K. J. V. 1893. Beretning om Undersøgelserne i Nord-Grønland i aarene 1878-90. In Meddelelser om Grønland, Vol. 5, No. 1 

Thalbitzer, W. 1914. The Ammassalik Eskimo. Contributions to the Ethnology of the East Greenland Natives. In Meddelelser om Grønland, Vol. 39 

PRIVACY participated in the Urban Interiors Network Conference in May

The research and teaching network ‘Urban Interiors’ explores interior spaces, privacy, and their implications for human beings in contemporary contexts. It focuses on interiors in urban areas, and the meetings and relationships that are created there between private and public spaces, both outdoors and indoors. The network enables interdisciplinary research projects, intersectoral discussions, teaching projects, and collaborations—facilitating the meeting of theory, history and practice.

The participants included designers, practising architects, historians of architecture, and researchers in the field of architectural design. In addition, the group comprised an anthropologist and an art curator. Despite our different approaches and backgrounds, we shared a common aim. This aim is to define and strengthen the field of interior studies from different perspectives and cultural contexts, with a focus on understanding interior space within a broader urban framework. Professor Kristina Fridh, a leading figure in the field and a driving force behind this distinctive network, has asserted that artistic research should be a shared, integral component for all participants.

The network includes representatives from the field of interior research and education in the Nordic countries (Sweden, Finland, Norway, and Denmark). The following institutions are involved in the network: Konstfack, the University of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm; the Royal Danish Academy – Architecture Design Conservation; KHIO, the Oslo National Academy of the Arts, Department of Interior Architecture and Furniture Design; Aalto University, Department of Architecture/Interior Architecture in Espoo; Chalmers University of Technology, Department of Building Design in Gothenburg; KTH Royal Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and the Built Environment; ArkDes in Stockholm; and the Centre for Privacy Studies, University of Copenhagen. PRIVACY was represented by Dr. Natalie Koerner, who is also an associate professor at the Royal Danish Academy – Architecture Design Conservation, along with me, Dr. Carmen García Sánchez, an assistant professor at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, in Madrid.

History informs important contemporary privacy questions. An interdisciplinary approach is essential to gain an in-depth understanding of the various perspectives. This was echoed by the presentation “An Early Modern Urban Interior” by Dr. Koerner, who reflected on the idea of the “open house”, which has been formulated by historians to describe the social, spatial, and economic relationships that characterized the Early Modern European house(hold). She compared a case from the 17th century with a recent news story of a hack on a private person to access their employer’s corporate data, illustrating how digital technologies, social media, and, paradoxically, the pandemic have once again opened up today’s home. This type of social openness requires spatial opportunities for privacy.

I presented “Modern Interiors: Ideas for Biophilic Design”, discussing how interior design can serve as a means of mediation in achieving a new alliance with nature, offering users of our buildings a much-needed sense of nature-connection. This connection can contribute to improved health and wellbeing. Some well-preserved postwar Danish houses were inspired by traditional Japanese architecture, particularly with regard to achieving a sense of interconnectedness with their gardens. The desire to open up to the garden inevitably compromises privacy, the experience of complex layers of daylight and darkness becomes intertwined with this.

Karen & Ebbe Clemmensen´s own study-house (1954), Denmark. © Carmen García Sánchez

Danish architect Knud Friis’ studio-house in Brabrand © Carmen García Sánchez

The presentation “Exploring publicness and interiority in insurgent Hong Kong” by Dr. Elton Chan, a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Building Design, Architecture, and Civil Engineering at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, was of particular interest. This prompted us to consider the intricacies of analyzing privacy issues within the Asian context and to explore potential parallels in the Nordic context.

When it comes to privacy issues and urban interiors, no concern is trivial. The forum, which took place at ArkDes museum in Stockholm on the 15th and 16th of May, provided a stimulating and thought-provoking space that gave rise to valuable ideas and points to consider and reflect upon.

Introducing PARITY

I’m excited to share with you PARITY, a research project that has been both a professional and personal journey for me. Here it is: http://parityinrenaissance.net

Figure 1: Photo by the author: Biblioteca Marciana, Venice.

The PARITY project was originally developed during the COVID-19 pandemic and the many online meetings at the Centre for Privacy Studies at the University of Copenhagen. Carried out at the Faculty of Design and Art at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, it was generously supported by the Department of Innovation and Research of the Province of South Tyrol (2023–2024).

I’m proud to say that PARITY has been awarded the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Seal of Excellence twice, a recognition that underscores the project’s academic potential and relevance.


At its core, PARITY is about giving voice and visibility to the Italian early modern women authors—specifically, through the often-overlooked world of paratexts. These include prefaces, dedications (dedicatory epistles), and other liminal material that surround the main body of the work. While frequently dismissed as secondary, they in fact, offer a fascinating and powerful space where authors could assert authority, express emotions, and navigate the complex social and literary landscapes of Renaissance culture.


The project’s name, PARITY, is an acronym: Paratext, Privacy, Renaissance, and Italy. The word parity really gets at one of the main ideas of my research—to explore and highlight how ideas of equality and defence of women’s roles, therefore ‘parity’ show up in paratexts, especially in dedicatory epistles. In doing such a research, the concept and the notion of privacy play a key conceptual role. The early modern understanding of privacy was markedly different from our own, it functioned as a dynamic and historically contingent concept—closely tied to how people understood the self, social norms, and state power.

Figure 2: Photo by the author: The Prague Book Tunnel.

In this sense, privacy becomes an analytical lens through which we can interpret early modern life: as a space of negotiation, identity construction, and even surveillance. And patatexts become a fascinating primary source. In many of the paratexts I study—particularly dedicatory epistles and addresses to readers—women authors found subtle ways to reference their private lives, to negotiate authority through gender, and to establish a voice within the public sphere. Not rarely, they include autobiographical moments that reveal how personal experience and social commentary could coexist beyond the rhetoric. Beside this, the material position of paratext, as an undefined zone—somewhere between the inside and the outside of the main text, becomes particularly important when thinking about privacy.


This online catalogue currently features thirty paratextual examples and is steadily growing. What makes PARITY particularly exciting for me is its interdisciplinary nature. It brings together literature, gender history, history of emotions, history of privacy, and digital humanities.


At its heart, PARITY is driven by a belief I hold deeply: to better understand our present, we must listen closely to the voices of the past. By shining a light on the overlooked contributions of women in early modern Italy, I hope this project helps us move toward a more inclusive and equitable view of history—and, ultimately, a more just future.

Figure 3: Photo by the author: Biblioteca dell’Archiginnasio, Bologna.


I invite you to explore the PARITY catalogue, follow along as it continues to grow, and join me on this journey! In my next post, I’ll be presenting the online exhibition Defence from the Margin, where I focus on three remarkable early modern women who defended their rights and claimed authority through paratexts.

Before I close, my heartfelt thanks to Prof. Mette Birkedal Bruun, whose idea this catalogue originally was, and who together with the wonderful team at the Centre for Privacy Studies supported this project from the very beginning. Natacha Klein Käfer thank you deeply, for everything. I am especially grateful for the guidance and support provided by my supervisor at the University of Bolzano, Elisabeth Tauber, whose involvement has been invaluable throughout. And special thanks to Alena Dziedzitz, who designed this site and patiently taught me how to manage it—I couldn’t have done it without you.


Dividing Yours and Ours – Private Belongings in Historic Greenland I

When considering notions of domestic privacy in Greenlandic Inuit cultures, one might take inspiration from Burch’s (2005) five different layers of property connected to the northwest Alaskan natives: societal, local family, domestic family, conjugal family, and individual. In this blog post, I consider to what extent this model can be applied to Greenlandic Inuit culture, and what this reveals about the dynamic between an individual and the cohabitants within a dwelling, by shedding light on the private space and personal belongings they would have possessed.  

It is important to note that in some contexts, the Alaskan property model remains a topic of discussion, depending on the elements being compared, as the notion of ‘ownership’ concerning a specific territory may initially have resembled more of a usufruct arrangement. Therefore, providing a brief overview of ownership rights at the societal and local levels is essential before delving into the layers of domestic, marital, and individual ownership.  

The societal level is connected to a cultural group’s use of whole land or exclusive land areas (Fortescue 1988; Purich 1992). The land of Greenland has undergone shifting utilization, most recently by the Greenlandic Dorset, then the Norse, and, in the end, by the people of the Thule culture, the forebears of contemporary Kalaallit (Greenlandic Inuit). Furthermore, the Greenlandic Inuit saw themselves as people of the coasts instead of inland dwellers (Sonne 2018), also primarily since they found the glacier-covered inland inhabitable. Therefore, the various groups who occupied Greenland utilized the land according to their specific needs, environmental context, and levels of technological knowledge.  

At the local level, the local families would occupy more than one dwelling at the same time due to their seasonal mobility and would be considered to have the right to use the resources of the land on which their houses were built (Collignon 1996; Aporta 2009). This might have been indicated by a particular area’s place name or through human-made landscape markers or topographies (Aporta 2016). In most cases, local family relations form the core structure of the various settlements as family members get spread out to live off the resources of their land area (Gulløv & Toft 2017: 42). Despite advanced excavation techniques, stratigraphic analysis, advanced re-fittings, and dating methods (such as radiocarbon dating), the task of precisely determining the contemporary use of dwellings remains intricate in archaeological investigations (Andreasen 2003). 

Historically, documented accounts indicate that close family members, such as siblings and cousins, frequently cohabited within the same winter house or in separate residences within the same settlement (Holm 1888). Concurrently, while maintaining awareness of each other, extended family members might not necessarily dwell in immediate proximity (Gulløv & Toft 2017: 28). Determining the precise dimensions of the territories associated with the usufruct rights of local families poses a significant challenge due to the considerable seasonal variation in available resources. Additionally, the overall population in the country, before administrative registrations, also relies solely on an estimate. In this regard, it is noteworthy that Parry’s records from 1824 describe people in the Igloolik area being acquainted with a territory spanning more than five hundred miles along a direct north-south line (Parry 1824: 513). Consequently, most communities would have comprised members of a singular local family, encompassing approximately a dozen to seventy individuals residing in two to a handful of houses (Gulløv 1997a).  

Fig. 1. Except for the wooden barrels, the scene could easily have been reminiscent of the 1700s Greenland, featuring a turf house, fish drying on a rack, kayaks at rest, and sled dogs basking in the sunny weather. Source: Arctic Institute. 

During times of abundant food, domestic and conjugal families could coexist, residing either under the same roof or within the same settlement. Conversely, in times of scarcity, they had the flexibility to disperse into smaller groups, establishing independent households at greater distances from one another (Burch 1975). The domestic family, residing in a larger dwelling, often included extended families with two or three closely related conjugal families, incorporating adult siblings or cousins and occasionally an elderly parent or two (Holm 1888). This domestic family owned the hunted and gathered food and essential items for shelter and transportation. These included larger skins used in constructing the summer tent, mid-seasonal qarmaq (a tent house), or winter house, along with the umiaq (large skin boat), sleds, and dogs. In the case of the umialik, whaling captain, his ownership rights extended to the umiaq (umialik literally meaning the owner of an umiaq; Eber 1989). However, practically, the crew hired by the umialik would have the boat at their disposal in the settlement (Burch 2005: 156).  

While somewhat overshadowed by domestic and local families, marital families retained private ownership of their bedding and hides or pelts obtained by any family member (Burch 1975). The possession of skins was essential for crafting clothing, bedding, and various other items, and surplus skins were treated as marketable commodities (Flora et al. 2018). Furs, particularly those from species with limited distribution, were a significant source of wealth. For instance, the trade of polar fox skins significantly contributed to financing several of Knud Rasmussen’s polar expeditions, which set out from the Thule trading station (Rasmussen 1921). While Alaskan couples typically handed over their surplus furs and hides to the head of the local family, expecting some reciprocation (Burch and Blehr 1991), this was not a prevalent practice in Greenland. Conversely, less proficient hunters in Greenland would remain close to a successful umialik, an Inuit whale hunter, as it was anticipated that he would share his spoils with those in his proximity (Spencer 1959; Spencer 1972). This shows how sharing and distribution of goods within local families varied between Greenlandic and Alaskan indigenous cultures. 

Personal possessions encompassed items such as clothing, tools, weapons, hunting boats (kayaks), and amulets, all individually owned. Men were responsible for crafting utensils for themselves and family members, while women created and maintained clothing for themselves and other family members (Mathiassen 1936). Although it was customary in Alaska to engrave nearly every object with the user’s personal property mark (Boas 1899; Reynolds 1983a; Reynolds 1983b), this practice is not present in the Greenlandic material. While numerous dispersion analyses after an archaeological excavation have aimed to showcase how different areas of the dwelling were used by men, women, children, and particularly rich cultural items, they fall short of definitively indicating restricted areas in the compact spaces of the winter houses (Gulløv 1997a; Møbjerg & Robert-Lamblin 1990). Deciphering these analyses is particularly challenging due to potential disruptions in context, both during occupation (e.g., house cleaning, residents’ movements misplacing items or accidentally kicking dropped items around) and post-occupation (e.g., foxes digging, erosion). Furthermore, the analyses do not necessarily reveal an individual’s personal space, which may have been experienced for a longer or shorter duration, as the analyses more accurately depict activities spanning several months. 

Another form of personal property consisted of songs. While certain songs were commonly shared, others – particularly magical songs – were strictly considered private property (Hauser 1986; Hauser 2010). Although some of these songs were performed on public occasions and known to other community members, only the owner could sing them, i.e., aqaatit, which were charms (Dan. kæleviser) dedicated to a child (Hauser 1978). Some songs were kept secret and only performed privately (Thalbitzer 1939). Both types of songs could be sold or inherited, at which point they became the exclusive property of the recipient (Hauser 1986: 360). Magic formulas (serratit) were not sung but were rather recited words spoken, and they too could be inherited or traded, although their efficiency would diminish over time through use or transfer to another individual (Hauser 1986). Last but not least, when relocated or altered to signal a claim, raw minerals or plant products could also be considered personal property (Boas 1899).  

Considering all above, it appears that most belongings and goods followed private ownership structures. What, then, was genuinely shared or common? The winter dwelling certainly required a collaborative effort, and for smooth operations, each person had to contribute their skills for the collective well-being. Consequently, it does not necessarily follow that artefacts were common property, but all 40 individuals or more operated as a cohesive unit, needing to get along. Following the extended winter, each family would disperse and spend the spring, summer, and early fall in smaller groups. Subsequently, the families would reunite in new configurations to spend the winter in the compact communal house. This seasonal way of living might have worked as a ventil from the restricted way of life during winter times, showing how the home sphere was a dynamic matter, constantly changing to fit the needs of the season. 

Fig. 2. Man singing (name unknown) at Uummannatsiaq in 1911 while playing the Greenlandic drum. Source: Arctic Institute. 

 

References 

Andreasen, C. 2003. Palaeoeskimo dwellings in Greenland. In Études/Inuit Studies, Vol. 27 (1-2) 

Aporta C. 2016. Marking the Land, Routledge 

Aporta C. 2009.  The Trail as Home: Inuit and Their Pan-Arctic Network of Routes. In Human Ecology, Vol. 37, pp. 131-146 

Boas, F. 1899. Property marks of Alaskan Eskimo. In American Anthropologist, Vol. 1 

Burch Jr., E. S. 2005. Alliances and Conflict – The World System of the Iñupiaq Eskimos, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln NE 

Burch Jr., E. S.  1975. Indians and Eskimos in North Alaska 1816-1977. In Arctic Anthropology, Vol. 16(2) 

Burch Jr., E. S. and O Blehr 1991. Herd following reconsidered. In Current Anthropology, Vol. 32(4), University of Chicago Press 

Collignon, B. 1996. Les Inuit: Ce Qu’ils Savent Du Territoire, L’Harmattan, Paris 

Dickie, V. A. 2010. Experiencing Therapy through Doing: Making Quilts. In Occupational Therapy Journal of Research, Vol. 31, No. 4, Sage Journals  

Eber, D. H. 1989. When the Whalers Were Up North: Inuit Memories from the Eastern Arctic, McGill’s Queen Press, Kingston and Montreal 

Flora, J. K., K. L. Johansen, B. Grønnow, A. O. Andersen and A. Mosbech, 2018. Past and Present Dynamics of Inughuit Resource Spaces. In AMBIO A Journal of the Human Environment, Vol. 47 (suppl. 2) 

Fortescue, M. 1988. Eskimo Orientation Systems. In Meddelelser om Grønland, Man & Society, No. 11, Commission for Scientific Research in Greenland, Copenhagen 

Gulløv, H. C. and P. A. Toft 2017. Den førkoloniale tid. In. H. C. Gulløv (ed.) Grønland, Den Arktisk Koloni, Gads Forlag A/S 

Gulløv, H. C. 1997. From Middle Ages to Colonial Times: Archaeological and 

ethnohistorical studies of the Thule culture in South West Greenland 1300-1800 AD, the 

Commission for Scientific Research in Greenland, Copenhagen 

Hauser, M. 2010. Traditional Inuit Songs from the Thule Area, Vol. 1, Museum Tusculanum Press 

Hauser, M.  1986. Traditional and Acculturated Greenlandic Music. In Arctic Anthropology, Vol. 23, No. 1 & 2, pp. 359-386 

Hauser, M.  1978. Inuit songs from southwest Baffin island in cross-cultural context II. In Études Inuit Studies, Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 71-81 

Holm, G. 1888. Etnologisk skizze af Angmagsalikerne. In Meddelelser om Grønland, Vol. 39, No. 1 

Mathiassen, T. 1936. The Eskimo Archaeology of the Julianehaab District. In Meddelelser om Grønland, Vol. 118, No. 1 

Mathiassen, T. 1930. Inugsuk. A Medieval Eskimo Settlement in Upernavik District, West Greenland. In Meddelelser om Grønland, Vol. 77 

Mathiassen, T. 1927. Archaeology of Central Eskimoes, Vol. 1+2. In Report from 5th Thule Expedition, Vol. 4 

Møbjerg, T. and J. Robert-Lamblin 1990. The settlement of Ikaasap Ittiva, East Greenland: An ethno-archaeological investigation. In Acta Archaeologica, Vol. 60, 1989, København 

Parry, W. E. 1824. Journal of a Second Voyage for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage From the Atlantic to the Pacific, J. Murray, London 

Purich, D. 1992. The Inuit and their land, Lorimer, Toronto 

Rasmussen, K. 1975. The People of the Polar North: A Record, G. Herring (ed.) Gale Research Co., Detroit (published initially 1908, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. Ltd, London) 

Rasmussen, K. 2021 (first published 1925). Fra Grønland til Stillehavet, Lindhardt og Ringhof, København 

Reynolds, G. 1983a. Ownership marks and social relationships in northwestern Alaska, paper presented at the annual meeting of the Alaska Anthropological Association 

Reynolds, G. 1983b. Ownership marks, unpublished manuscript 

Sonne, B. 2018. Worldviews of the Greenlanders – An Inuit Arctic Perspective, University of Alaska Press 

Spencer, R. F. 1972. ‘The Social Composition of the North Alaskan Whaling Crew’. In Guemple, L. (ed.) Alliance in Eskimo Society, Proceedings of the American Ethnological Society, 1971, Supplement, University of Washington Press, Seattle (pp. 110-120) 

Spencer, R. F.  1959. The North Alaskan Eskimo. A Study in Ecology and Society‘, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 171 of the Bureau of American Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C. 

Thalbitzer, W. 1939. Inuit Sange og Danse fra Grönland/Inuit kalâliussut erinassûtaisa qitatisalo ilait, Einar Munksgaard 

Evolution of Privacy and the Private Space in Contemporary African Communities

Privacy, as a concept, has historically been intertwined with cultural norms and values, reflecting the unique social contexts in which it emerges. Globally, the early articulation of privacy was heavily shaped by Western notions of individualism, fostering a narrative that tied privacy to the individual’s autonomy and rights. In contrast, Africa’s communal-oriented cultural framework led to the perception that privacy was less relevant or even absent. This misconception was fueled by the emphasis on collective identity and minimal visible evidence of formal privacy frameworks on the continent.

For much of history, African societies have prioritized communal living, where decisions, resources, and spaces are shared among extended families and larger community groups. In such settings, the idea of personal boundaries, as conceptualized in Western privacy traditions, often seemed at odds with the collective ethos. The result was a long-held belief that privacy—as a distinct and individual right—was not a priority within African cultures.

However, this perspective has gradually evolved, particularly since the turn of the 21st century. The advent of globalization, urbanization, and widespread digital connectivity has introduced new dynamics to African societies, necessitating a reexamination of privacy in the modern context. Digital technologies, such as mobile phones and social media platforms, have enabled unprecedented levels of connectivity and information sharing, bringing with them unique risks to personal data and identity. These changes have heightened the awareness of privacy as a critical issue.

Moreover, cultural values in Africa have never been static. Traditional practices, while deeply rooted in community, often included implicit forms of privacy. For instance, sensitive information such as familial disputes were typically shared only within trusted circles. Such practices demonstrate that while privacy may not have been articulated in Western terms, it was embedded in the cultural fabric.

The evolution of privacy norms in Africa has led to the emergence of formal regulatory frameworks, with countries across the continent enacting data protection laws to safeguard personal information. South Africa’s Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA), Nigeria’s Data Protection Act (NDPA), and Kenya’s Data Protection Act are examples of how governments are addressing the need for privacy in a digital age. These laws reflect a growing recognition of privacy as a fundamental right, aligned with both global standards and local cultural contexts.

Importantly, this evolution has not diminished the value of community in African societies. Instead, it reflects a nuanced balance between preserving cultural identity and adapting to contemporary realities. African communities are increasingly recognizing that privacy and communal values are not mutually exclusive. Rather, privacy enables individuals to safeguard their autonomy and dignity within the collective framework, ensuring that digital and physical spaces remain respectful and inclusive.

As Africa continues to navigate the complexities of a digitally connected world, the conversation around privacy will likely deepen, informed by the continent’s unique cultural heritage. This journey highlights the adaptability of privacy norms and underscores the importance of grounding global concepts in local realities.

Bibliography:

Warren and Brandeis, “The Right to Privacy”, Harvard Law Review, 1890 – https://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.805/articles/privacy/Privacy_brand_warr2.html 

Alex B Makulilo, “A Person Is a Person through Other Persons”—A Critical Analysis of Privacy and Culture in Africa”, 2016 – https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation?paperid=69939

Mercy King’ori, “Looking Back to Forge Ahead: Challenges of Developing an African Conception of Privacy”, 2022 – https://fpf.org/blog/looking-back-to-forge-ahead-challenges-of-developing-an-african-conception-of-privacy/

 

The vulvic spaces of privacy: Reflections of a privacy scholar upon visiting the exhibition L’intime de la chambre aux réseaux sociaux, currently at the Musée des arts décoratifs

[Content warning: This blogpost includes images of a sexual nature.]

 

A grand exhibition at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris tells the history of intimacy through art and every-day objects. Offering contemporary as well as historic perspectives on privacy, this rich exhibition provides much food for thought. Unfortunately, however, an overly narrow focus on sexuality leads to the false understanding that intimacy and privacy are inventions of modernity.

As I approach the exhibition L’intime de la chambre aux réseaux sociaux, currently open at the Musée des arts décoratifs in Paris, I am reminded of the words of the Marxist sociologist Henri Lefebvre (1901–1991). He wrote that “verticality and great height have ever been the spatial expression of potentially violent power” (1991 [1972], p. 98). At the top of an impressive set of stairs leading into the galleries of the Marson Pavillon of the Louvre, I am met by a gigantic red keyhole carved out in a massive white wall of a triangular shape. Although already four or five meters tall, the red keyhole is visually prolonged by the triangular shape of the wall, which draws the eye upwards to the circular balustraded balconies that perforate the vaulted ceiling. The object reinforces the Louvre’s projection of phallocratic power. But the red keyhole also produces a strikingly different impression of authority. One that is distinctly vulvic.

The vulvic-cum-phallic keyhole wall embodies a two-fold spatialization which frames the entire exposition in a tension between vulnerability and domination. This is, to my mind, its indubitable strength. On the one hand, the form of the object (keyhole) straightforwardly implies that intimacy is found in closed-of private spaces which require either permission or violence to access. Simultaneously, however, the hollow space inside the keyhole suggests transparency and openness, thereby inviting us to peek through the façade and look at what lies hidden beyond. In other words, the keyhole-form imposes a spatial logic telling us that intimacy occurs when we draw boundaries of privacy and invite other to share them. The keyhole becomes analogous of intimacy as an intersubjective play with boundaries. On the other hand, the form of the object (vulvic-cum-phallic) introduces the reproductive organs as a key factor of this play on boundaries and, thereby, unleashes sexual desire. Insisting on the right of the individual to dictate and define these boundaries, the vulvic-cum-phallic keyhole also implies the (feministic) right to frustrate sexual desire (see Laneyrie-Dagen and Vigarello 2015, p. 200). Thereby, power and gender-dynamics are introduced into the space of intimacy.

The (vulvic) keyhole in the (phallic) wall is a strong symbol because it shows the complexity of intimacy as something that occurs through an ambiguous play between the private and the public. Unfortunately, however, the strong focus on the sexuality also produces a linear understanding of the history of intimacy. As the contribution of museum director Christine Marcel to the catalogue reveals, the fluidity between private and public is taken to be a post-modern phenomenon (Macel 2024, p. 12). Co-curator Fulvio Irace sees a “change in sensibility” in 20th-century paintings of René Magritte and Paul Delvaux, which construct the domestic as “a space of transition” (2024, p. 23 and 27). Thus, private space is taken to be an invention of the bourgeoisie in the 18th and 19th centuries and its dissolution as a late-modern or post-modern moment. Although a footnote in Macel’s text brings attention to the 4th century church father Augustine of Hippo as he who “inaugurated the notion of intimacy” and the 16th century French author Montaigne as he who “humanized it”, one gets the impression that private spaces did not exist before the 18th century. Indeed, the poster accompanying the vulvic-cum-phallic keyhole goes so far as to state that “it was during the eighteenth century that the word intime first appeared in France”. This statement is unfortunately as false as the perception that private spaces did not exist in the early modern period – Montaigne himself, for instance, uses “intime” to describe friendship and “privé” to describe the sexual relations between husband and wife (Montaigne 1595, 434 and 49), and it dampens my initial excitement. Nonetheless, the exhibition is rich and provides ample food for thought.

A vulcic-cum-phallic object greets me at the entrance to the exhibition in the Marson Pavillon of the Louvre.

Whether mesmerized, perplexed, or simply impressed by the vulvic-cum-phallic object greeting me, I for some reason enter the exhibition through the exit and therefore move through the rooms in the wrong direction. This reversed itinerary only accentuates the linear understanding that intimacy and privacy are inventions of modernity.

The first/last room I enter displays some adolescent diaries dating from the 19th to the 21st centuries. They show that images and colours take primacy as we move up through 20th and 21st centuries. Intimacy is apparently invaded by the culture of visualization promoted by TV and post-war popular culture. In this room, I am most interested by the main poster. The curators seem to address the question I voiced above about the ability of intimacy to produce alternative social spaces. They do so through a distinction between “intimacy” (l’intime) and “the intimate” (l’intimité). If intimacy is that which occurs in private space, theintimate, they suggest, is that which “lies beyond intimacy” and consists of “the imaginations that inhabit us, buried deep within, impossible to take away”, “allow(ing) us to develop relationships with others”. Such an understanding of the intimate suggests that affective relationships of intimacy are nourished when we share with others that which is hidden within us.

The question of vulnerability is taken up again in the section devoted to present-day social media. I am struck by the reflections of the French influencer and entrepreneur Camille Aumont Carnel (born 1996), founder of the movement @jemenbatsleclito, devoted to speaking about sex without taboo. She gives voice to my intuition about intimacy as a space liberated from the power relations of the social sphere by defining the intimate in opposition to privacy: “What is privacy”, she asks, “when what happens there concerns us all? The intimate is more a place of silence than a place of secrecy”. To my mind, these words express a deep wish to carve out a social space liberated from the totalizing logic of the keyhole and its concomitant play of power on the ambiguity between visible/invisible, hidden/revealed, protected/transgressed. I associate Carnel’s distinction between the public nature of privacy and the silence of the intimate with the “tyranny of the sign”, which is to say the incessant effect of language to ascribe symbolic meaning to objects and actions. She expresses a desire to liberate the intimate from the totalizing space of the symbol. In doing so, she challenges the logic of the vulvic-cum-phallic keyhole, which imposes on intimacy a predefined (sexual) power dynamic of privacy.

@camilleaumontcarnel; @jemenbatsleclitot.

But as I move further through the exhibition and backwards in time, I begin to understand that Carnel’s voicing of the intimate as a longing to break free of the tyranny of the sign is an isolated instance. The logic of the keyhole dominates throughout: Privacy is spatialized in vulvic-cum-phallic form in so far as it is a space where social power dynamics reign queen. We are presented with different historical moments in which private spaces are constructed to protect intimacy. For instance, privacy as viewed through surveillance technology, situations of precarity such as homelessness and migration, or working from home. These sections all offer food for thought as to the permeability of the boundaries separating private and public in the 20th and 21st centuries. The question of how technology impacts on fluid delineations, and the kinds of intimacies they produce, is key.

Yet, as the keyhole at the entrance suggests, the body is central to the understanding of intimacy projected in this exhibition. This rules out the presence of private spaces before the 18th century. Turning a corner, I suddenly stand before a display of myriad sex-toys from the late 20th and 21st centuries. On the wall facing them are illustrated erotic novels written by libertins of the 18th century. Demonstrating how the space of bodily intimacy has been shaped by the feminist and queer movements, these objects are part of a larger ambition of the curators to show the diversification in the representation of sexuality in the post-modern age. This ambition persists in the following room showing that the visual arts have, especially through photography, ennobled homosexual intimacy and contested the “male gaze” through a reappropriation of sexuality. In the main gallery of the Marson Pavillon – which is the imposing hall hidden behind the white triangular wall with the gigantic keyhole described above – design icons from the 1950s onwards demonstrate the explosion of the nuclear family and the invention of new types of intimacy. Beds, sofas, and chairs display that the sexual revolution consists of a “transition to post-modernity” when “boundaries between public and private (…) begin to blur”.

A display of sex toys at the Musée des arts décoratifs.

The last exhibition rooms I enter, emphasize this historiographical narrative by taking us into the bedrooms and restrooms of bourgeois women. These are presented as intimate spaces of transition were women prepared to move from the private to the public sphere. 19th century visual representations of the domestic sphere such as Édouard Vuillard’s Personnages dans un intérieur. L’intimité (1896) and articles used in the cabinet de toilette, exemplify how the 19th century was a “golden age of privacy” when the “boundaries between professional activity and family life are consolidated” (Macel 2024, 13).

These objects are exceedingly interesting in themselves, but it annoys me how neatly they are made to fit into the historiography of the “invention of privacy” in the 18th and 19th centuries. How solid were the boundaries between the domestic and the professional in the every-day life of 19th century? Did porous boundaries of privacy not exist prior to the post-modern era? Was there really not “a trace of privacy as we think of it now” before the 18th century (Laneyrie-Dagen and Vigarello 2015, p. 19)? Macel does mention “intimacy of the 16th and 17th centuries” but, again, only to affirm Norbert Elias’ hypothesis that old regime social space dissolved the separation between private and public (Macel 2024, p. 14). From the point of view of historical privacy studies, a collection of intimate objects as rich as that of the Musée des arts décoratifs could have contributed more to nuancing the history of intimacy and private space.

Edouard Vuillard (1868-1940). “Personnages dans un intérieur : l’intimité”, décor de la bibliothèque du Docteur Vaquez. Peinture à la colle sur toile, 1896. Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris, Petit Palais.

As I stated above, I find the vulvic-cum-phallic keyhole wall to be a powerful and well-chosen symbol for this exhibition because it accentuates the ambiguity of intimacy as a play of showing and hiding, establishing boundaries and allowing access. But it also awakens a resistance in me. The focus on the (sexual) body and privacy as an architectural space narrows the historical perspective on intimacy. Inspired by Carnel’s distinction between privacy as a space of secrecy and the intimate as a place of silence, this exhibition – rich and thought-provoking as it is – has made me wonder if the intimate is not a universal feature of all and any society. In this light, the intimate would be the will and desire to produce alternative social spaces that are liberated from the dominating ideologies or value systems. Or is it so that our most affective relationships will forever be subsumed under the totalizing logic of the vulvic-cum-phallic symbol and the social space it produces? According to this exhibition, it seems, it would be the latter.

Some strands of psychoanalysis might explain the longing for the silence of the intimate space as a case of infantile narcissism linked to a desire to regain the pre-linguistic state of the Real (Kristeva 1983, p. 282-283; Lacan 2005 [1966], p. 324). I, for my part, find it essential to identifying historical occurrences of intimacy and private spaces. As Lefebvre repeatedly pointed out in his criticism of structuralist semiotics, abstract systems tend to subsume everything under their own abstract logic. Psychoanalysis, for instance, appropriates the space of the intimate by supposing a “hidden” meaning and immediately proposes its own logic to bring it to light. Although the Real remains “impossible” it is also ever-present (Lacan 2005 [1966], p. 17). This is a power move with a tendency towards totalization. Why? Because it subsumes every aspect of physical space (even the most interior parts of our embodied selves) to a symbol that must be deciphered (although it escapes language) through the abstraction of the theory. In other words, structuralist semiotics risk stifling the liberating potential of “the intimate” to a physical space of privacy, making this space a slave of its own symbolic order and claiming the paradoxical right of definition over it.

Perhaps this exhibition does something similar. Fulvio Irace, for example, sites Sigmund Freud’s use of architectural metaphors to speak about “the unconscious” (2024, p. 22). By focusing so strongly on privacy as the right to define boundaries of intimacy, the liberating potential of the intimate is engulfed by the violent power embodied in phallocratic spaces. Reinventing phallic forms of domination in a vulvic form is not so much a critique of phallocratic social space as it is a reproduction of its will to power and domination. Perhaps the silent space of the intimate is a utopia. Regardless of how one answers this question, I believe the symbolic liberation of the intimate must be preserved, protected, and projected unto the public sphere not as an abstract theory but as an openness towards alternative social spaces. Historical privacy studies of the early modern period hold the potential to project such alternative spaces unto our present times by identifying how the intimate has particularized itself in specific contexts. The rich collections of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs are likely a treasure trove of objects that could shed light on the early modern history of privacy and intimacy.

A selfie of the author.

 

Bibliography

Christine Macel, “Les Objects de l’Intime”, in L’Intime de la Chambre aux Réseaux Sociaux, (ed. Christine Macel), Gallimard, Paris, 2024.

Christine Macel, Private Lives from the Bedroom to Social Media, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, 2024.

Édouard Vuillard, Personnages dans un Intérieur. L’intimité, 1896, Paris, Petit Palais.

Fulvio Irace, Public et Privé: une Question de Modernité?, in L’Intime de la Chambre aux Réseaux Sociaux, (ed. Christine Macel), Gallimard, Paris, 2024.

Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, Blackwell, Oxford UK & Cambridge USA, 1991 [1972].

Jacques Lacan, Ecrits: The First Complete Edition in English, W. W. Norton & Co., New York and London, 2005 [1966                               ].

Julia Kristeva, Histoires d’amour, Éditions Denoël, 1983.

Nadeije Laneyrie-Dagen & Georges Vigarello, La Toilette. Naissance de l’Intime/The Invention of Privacy, Éditions Hazan, Paris, 2015.

Michel Seigneur de Montaigne, Les Essais. EDITION NOUVELLE TROVVEE APRES le deceds de l’Autheur, reveuë & augmentee par luy d’un siers plus qu’aux precedents Impression, Abel l’Angelier, Paris, 1595.

Interdisciplinary perspectives on homes and healthcare

The following is a modified translation of an article on hospitals at home written by editor Emma Klakk for the STAY HOME-website, published in Danish on December 20, 2023. STAY HOME: The Home during the Corona Crisis – and after is a research project funded by the Carlsberg Foundation and based at the Centre for Privacy Studies. We republish this article in English for the PRIVACY blog with an additional paragraph titled ‘Cross-pollination of ideas and perspectives’ describing the development of the collaboration on hospitals at home and some new reflections on the topic inspired by other PRIVACY activities in order to show how the past-present exchange cultivated at PRIVACY develops into new collaborations and publications in an ongoing dynamic between research into historical cases and involvement with current issues.

Hospital at home and home treatment – what does it mean for our homes?

In the STAY HOME project, we have extensive experience with interdisciplinary discussions, projects, and research. However, interdisciplinarity was taken to new heights on 12 December 2023 when we hosted an interdisciplinary and cross-sectorial workshop on hospitalization in the home (hereafter hospital at home) and home treatment. The participants were pharmacists, researchers in religious studies, nurses, lawyers, technology researchers, anthropologists, consultants, and historians. It was an enriching and inspiring day that left much food for thought.

the picture shows some of the workshop participants sitting at some tables.
We opened the doors to the Faculty of Theology at the University of Copenhagen, where STAY HOME is hosted, and invited researchers and practitioners from both academia and the healthcare sector.

The workshop was organized by the STAY HOME-project on the initiative of two social pharmaceutical researchers, professor Lotte Stig Nørgaard and external lecturer Janine Traulsen from Department of Pharmacy at the University of Copenhagen, whom we have previously interviewed for the STAY HOME-website. The workshop made a great impression on us in the STAY HOME project, as the PI, Professor Mette Birkedal Bruun, reports:

It was a terrific day. It is always exciting to see how, in interdisciplinary contexts, we can reach new insights through joint conversation, professional listening and questioning, as well as a good deal of sincere interest in learning from each other. As a university researcher, it humbles me to meet practitioners who deal with these issues on a daily basis, and the meeting between scholarly and practical perspectives was one of the great benefits of the day. In relation to our STAY HOME research, it made a particular impression on me that the home can function as a workplace not only for those of us who live in it [as is increasingly the case since corona], but also for people from outside such as healthcare professionals.

The purpose of the workshop was to initiate a debate on hospitals at home and formulate focus points for future research on hospitals at home and home treatment. We asked: Hospitals at home and home treatment – what does it mean for our homes? With this question, we wanted to open a debate on how hospitals at home and home treatment interfere with our perceptions of home, the everyday lives of patients and relatives, the work procedures and skills of different health professions, and our ideas about the role of public and private actors in nursing and treatment. First and foremost, however, we had to clarify what we mean when we use the terms home, hospital at home, and home treatment.

Concepts, definitions, and ideas

As we have experienced before in our interdisciplinary work, it is often necessary, albeit challenging, to clarify concepts when different disciplines are brought together. Concepts that are common in some fields may be unknown to others, but the same concepts may also be used differently within different disciplines. At the workshop, we soon became aware that there are different words for different kinds of healthcare, implying different kinds of care, patients, and professions. What we in Danish refer to as ‘sundhedspleje’ (health visiting) is different than ‘sygepleje’ (nursing) – concepts we do not normally deal with in STAY HOME. It may seem trivial, but it is important to use the right words to avoid misunderstandings: what seems a broad blanket term to a non-expert, may be a technical term for those who are in the know. The healthcare professionals pointed out that at the workshop we were interested in ‘sygepleje’ (nursing) – care of sick patients – and not the examination and counselling of (healthy) children and adolescents – which is the professionally correct, and to some extent etymologically implied, understanding of the word ‘sundhedspleje’ (health visiting) in Danish. Furthermore, as a sociologist and a church historian, we had to ask clarifying questions when healthcare professionals used abbreviations such as IV treatment (intravenous treatment: medical treatment directly into the vein).

In the more complicated area of concept clarification were definitions of hospital at home and home, which were two key concepts at the workshop. Are we talking about hospitals at home when the patient uses medicine and medical equipment at home? Is it a hospital at home if you sit at home and contact the hospital through a video consultation? We did not agree on a clear definition, but expanded the discussion to deal with home treatment, as we were particularly interested in discussing what happens to e.g. the home, family relations, patient safety, and working conditions when parts of the hospital treatment move into the home and when the home (at least for a period of time) becomes the healthcare professionals’ workplace.

One workshop participant, clinical nursing specialist, Louise Bangsgaard Antonsen from Rigshospitalet, who has many years of experience with home treatment, elaborates:

Home treatment and hospitals at home have gone from being a highly specialized area defined by the Danish Health Authority to becoming a political mantra and a management strategy in the past few years. Thus, several different disciplines and institutions influence this field and its development, but we need a serious clarification of concepts in this area to qualify the discussion.

One of the aims of the workshop was to include many disciplines in the discussion about hospitals at home and home treatment, but as Louise emphasizes, this professional and disciplinary diversity makes it even more important to clarify the core concepts. This work of clarification also includes a discussion about what the aim of hospitals at home is and should be. Another participant of the workshop, senior researcher within the field of working environments, Kasper Edwards from the Technical University of Denmark, clarifies:

The concept of ‘hospital at home’ is quite complicated. Since we do not have a good definition of a hospital, it becomes even more of a hassle with hospital at home. In the process of defining lies the need to clarify what the hospital at home should be able to do and for whom. Is consideration for the patient or financial considerations the decisive factor?

A concept is not neutral, but is enveloped in expectations, ideals, and norms about what the purpose should be and for whom. This is certainly true for the concept of ‘home’, which has been the focal point of many interdisciplinary discussions in STAY HOME. At the workshop, we kept coming back to the idea of the home: what is the good home and for whom? Which homes are suitable for hospitalization at home and a good setting for home treatment? Does clutter in the home mean that the patient and relatives are challenged? Or is clutter just a common condition in a home? There is normativity at play in our idea of the home, and it was emphasized several times that there are countless forms of home and that the nuances must not disappear when hospital at home and home treatment are implemented and developed. Hospital at home, like the home, is a complex phenomenon that invites interdisciplinary collaboration.

Interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral collaboration

When healthcare professionals, university researchers, and actors from the private sector are brought together, they may be hard put to agree on who should play which role in home treatment, or whether finances, inequality, or patient safety should be given the highest priority. It is important to bring many nuances into this debate and we covered a wide range of topics in our discussions. Interdisciplinarity can be both enriching and challenging, as senior researcher Kasper Edwards describes:

Interdisciplinarity is the key to a broad understanding of a complex phenomenon. The advantage of interdisciplinarity is the broad rapid first step towards an understanding of the phenomenon. One challenge of interdisciplinarity is the difficulty of converging due to large disciplinary differences. It can be difficult to assess what is the most important thing to focus on in relation to hospitals at home and home treatment, but that is the price of interdisciplinarity.

The picture shows the workshop participants sitting in two different groups around two tables
In addition to presentations and plenary discussions, the workshop comprised interdisciplinary and cross-sectorial group work.

Important research projects on hospitals at home are already underway in Denmark, but we still lack knowledge about the further effects of hospitals at home in a Danish context. The workshop was therefore very explorative, and we – as is natural at this initial stage – came up with more questions than answers. As participant in the workshop Andrei-Daniel Staicu, who is a master’s degree student at the Department of Pharmacy at the University of Copenhagen, observes:

One of the things that surprised me most about talking to so many smart people across disciplines was how little we actually know about the prevalence and consequences of hospitals at home for patients and healthcare professionals.

Therefore, one purpose of the workshop was to formulate focus points for future research into hospitals at home based on experience and research in related topics such as home treatment, video consultations, and the multifunctional home during the corona pandemic. Clinical nursing specialist, Louise Bangsgaard Antonsen underlines that

[i]t is essential for solutions in the future to examine existing evidence and experience, which is why I am also extremely grateful to have been invited to the workshop. In addition, the workshop provided me with a lot of new insights about the home, for example, and about what research outside the healthcare system can contribute to the development of home treatment.

The interdisciplinary and cross-sectorial composition of the workshop aimed to highlight nuances and diverse perspectives on hospitals at home and home treatment. We discussed the opportunities as well as the challenges of home treatment as there is rarely one without the other. In this connection, senior researcher Kasper Edwards highlights some of the insights he took away from the workshop:

Hospitals at home can have a major impact on patients and their families. On the one hand, it can be liberating and bring the patient back to normal. On the other hand, it can ‘hospitalize’ both the patient and relatives, while the home as a safe and secure space where inhabitants are in control can disappear.

Despite our different starting points, which sometimes led to conflicting points of view, the discussions were constructive and inclusive, as master’s degree student Andrei-Daniel Staicu also noted:

It was challenging for me as a student with less experience than everyone else at the workshop to think broadly and dare to share my knowledge and opinions. However, the other participants were friendly and supportive, and I quickly felt safe and became involved in the conversations.

We really learned a lot from the meeting across disciplines and sectors. There is plenty more work to be done, as Louise Bangsgaard Antonsen concludes:

It is a very relevant issue that was raised at the workshop, and our combined knowledge can have great value for the healthcare system, patients, and relatives if we get a little deeper and formulate our proposal for how the different concepts can be used and emphasize the importance of taking an interdisciplinary and critical approach to the development of hospitals at home and home treatment. I therefore hope that we will have the opportunity to meet and work together again.

Cross-pollination of ideas and perspectives

Since the workshop, we have met with the group a couple of times and been in contact to work collaboratively on a commentary on interdisciplinary and cross-sectorial perspectives on hospitals at home. The commentary is taking form and will hopefully be published in an academic journal next year.

On a political level, hospitals at home and home treatment have received renewed attention in Denmark. In September 2024, the Danish government proposed a new health reform to move the healthcare system closer to the patients in all parts of the country. This entails more home-based care such as digital solutions for home treatment of chronically ill patients, as well as establishing local teams of healthcare professionals for home treatment. The healthcare system is continuously in development due to changes in resources, types of illnesses, demographics, technologies, and ways of living, and historical perspectives can shed new light on these developments.

Recently, two PRIVACY colleagues, associate professors Natalie Körner and Johannes Ljungberg hosted the international workshop Building Early Modern Privacy at the Royal Danish Academy related to the two PRIVACY themes Home and Urban Space. Two presentations were particularly inspiring for the discussions of hospitals at home and thus also bridged to PRIVACY theme Health. Historian Emma Marshall presented her research on “Sites of sickness, places of privacy? The sickbed and social behaviour in English gentry homes” which focuses on eighteenth-century cases, and the architect Anja Fröhlich who presented a chronologically broad historical overview of hospitals in Europe, addressing “The Dilemma of Separation and Openness: Types of Hospital Architecture and their Impact on Patient Privacy”. Between them, the two presentations inspired a conversation regarding the influence of social, spatial, and economic resources on sick care in the home and in the hospital. Anja Frölich was asked about the role of the relatives in the hospitalization of early modern patients, and her answer was striking: hospitals were only for the vulnerable people without resources and social networks. The resourceful patients were treated at home with help from servants and relatives as shown by Emma Marshall. Such historical cases shed new light on home treatment today and incite questions regarding resources and accessibility: Are hospitals at home only a relevant possibility for privileged and resourceful patients? What role should the relatives play in home-based care? What will happen to the hospitals and the less resourceful patients if privileged patients are treated at home? It was an unexpected outcome that this historical workshop ended up influencing our current pondering of present-day hospitals at home, but the two presentations certainly help us ask new questions and consider new aspects of home treatment.

The cross-pollination of ideas and perspectives across the different projects, events, and disciplines engaged in, and sprouting from, PRIVACY keeps inspiring and motivating us for more interdisciplinary endeavours. Some of the outcomes of engaging in different disciplinary constellations are relatively straightforward, such as the examples above, other outcomes might be more tacit and implied, but still have an impact on our perspectives and the questions we ask.

A meeting of disciplines, people, laws and technologies: PRIVACY at the CPDP.ai Conference in Brussels

The organizers had invited PRIVACY to host a workshop at this year’s Computer, Privacy, Data Protection Conference in Brussels May 21-24, 2024. The delegation included Centre Director and Editor in Chief at Privacy Studies Journal (PSJ), Mette Birkedal Bruun, recently published authors of PSJ, Natacha Klein Käfer and Mateusz Jurewicz, and assistant editor of PSJ, Emma Klakk. The conference was packed with panels, workshops, book sessions, art, and networking sessions, involving organizations, scholars, businesses, policy makers, and activists.

We have come back with a lot of food for thought concerning interdisciplinarity, collaborations, and networks of people, technologies, and values in relation to privacy, data, and AI.

Privacy Studies Journal workshop

On the first full day of the conference, Wednesday 22, PRIVACY and PSJ hosted the workshop Artificial Intelligence and Privacy: Causes for Concern? The workshop was introduced with a presentation by Centre Director and Editor in Chief, Professor Mette Birkedal Bruun, of the journal, the centre, and our comprehensive and interdisciplinary approach to privacy and the private. At PSJ we consider privacy a broad and multifaceted concept that manifests in, and is contested by, ideas, architecture, laws, technologies, art, norms, social structures, and relations et al., and thus we see efforts across disciplines and sectors as a key to approaching, understanding, and tackling privacy related issues. After Mette’s presentation, assistant professor of history at PRIVACY, Natacha Klein Käfer and Computer Scientist Dr Mateusz Jurewicz presented the principal results from their newly published position paper in PSJ Artificial Intelligence and Privacy: Causes for Concern, as well as some insights into their interdisciplinary collaborations around the paper.

Professor Mette Birkedal Bruun presenting the work tool of heuristic zones in front of a screen. Workshop participants sitting around a table.
At the workshop Mette presented the heuristic zones which are developed in PRIVACY’s historical research. Mateusz, Natacha, and their co-author Esben Kran have structured their PSJ article according to the heuristic zones.

The participants in the workshop were students, consultants, and officers from policy, law, technology et al. with expertise in areas such as health care, AI, religion, human rights, social affairs, data collection, classification, and protection. We are genuinely excited about the interdisciplinary participation at our workshop, which enabled fruitful and nuanced discussions. Nevertheless, when we bring people from many different backgrounds together in order to understand and learn from each other, it is important that each of us is explicit about terminology, focus, and perspectives. As an example, we discussed at the workshop what human-centred means. Which humans are at the forefront when we take a human-centred approach to privacy and AI? The immediate association of human-centred AI is that it concerns those humans who, as users, objects, and data subjects, are influenced by AI, and whose privacy is threatened or protected. However, human beings also populate the tech-companies, their board rooms, and their investor circles, and human beings run the AI training sessions, the policy fora, and the regulating offices. Each of these human beings comes with a particular baggage of explicit and implicit assumptions as well as cultural, economic, moral, and political norms and values. At PRIVACY and in Privacy Studies Journal, we argue that history can contribute to showing how different cultural outlook, personal intentions, social conditions, and inherited values influence the way in which people act in a given situation. Such actions and their underlying motives colour the development and usage of any given technology in past and present. Accordingly, we argue that human components are indispensable if we want to understand technologies such as AI and the inherent presence and absence of privacy, and that scholars from the humanities and the social sciences need to engage with such connections in order to reach a holistic view of the technologies at hand.

Systems of technology, data, values, and labour

The hot topic at the CPDP conference this year was Artificial Intelligence. CPDP recently rebranded as CPDP.ai. It seems that we can no longer discuss computers, privacy, and data protection without considering AI. We argue, however, that we cannot discuss computers, privacy, data protection, and AI without considering the humans involved in producing, consuming, regulating, promoting, or contesting it.

On the opening night of the conference, Tuesday May 21, director of SHARE Foundation and associate professor at the New Media Department of the University of Novi Sad, Vladan Joler, gave a lecture about territories, interconnections, and resources in the age of AI. In collaboration with professor at the University of Southern California, Kate Crawford, Joler has mapped the systems and networks of producing and consuming AI technologies. Through different visualizations he showed how AI technologies are part of interlaced systems and histories of labour, natural resources, money, and classification of concepts.

Professor Vladan Joler presenting in front of a big screen with different visualizations.
Vladan Joler, Associate Professor at the New Media Department of University of Novi Sad gives the opening keynote lecture at CPDP.ai.

Joler’s visualizations are a striking reminder that often when we discuss ethical AI, we talk about biases in the Large Language Models, privacy, as well as data protection for the consumers, and maybe gender-based violence enabled by AI. While these are very important issues to discuss and attend to, they are only the top of the iceberg (or the map) of ethical issues: what about the working conditions of those mining for the cobalt used in our devices from which we use AI? What about the huge energy consumption of the data centres that drive the AI systems? What about the impact of AI on the planet? It is important to ask, how did we get here? What choices were made on the way and by whom? What are the supply chains and the histories behind AI technologies? What people, resources, technologies, labour, languages, and data does the development and use of AI technologies rely on? The historical research can help us answer such questions.

At the CPDP.ai conference, we were reminded once again of the fact that focusing on the human component of privacy and surrounding issues, as we strive to do at PRIVACY, means also to pay heed to responsibilities. If we talk about technologies and laws without talking about the people who produce the technologies, the people who make the laws, the people who market and use the technologies, as well as the people who abide by laws, and those who violate the laws, we are missing parts of the picture. A panel at CPDP.ai discussed gender-based online violence. A main topic in this debate was deep nudes; non-consensual sexual images/videos (primarily) of women and girls produced with AI technologies by adding faces of specific people to pictures and movies of either bodies of sex workers/actors or AI-generated bodies. These kinds of AI technologies do not only raise questions regarding regulations, but also questions concerning the cultural norms of consent, sexuality, and bodies. To tackle problems with deep nude technologies we need to understand the norms, values, beliefs, and practices among, e.g., young boys, who use these technologies. Of no less importance is, however, a focus on those who market such technologies, targeting, for example, young boys.

With our basis in Archaeology, Church History, History of Architecture, History of Ideas, Legal History, Archeology, and Social History and our work in interdisciplinary teams PRIVACY researchers are used to approaching privacy from several perspectives at once. We consider both legislative, religious, social, cultural, material, and architectural aspects. The CPDP.ai conference inspires us to pursue the past-present perspective with even greater vigour. The insights from our historical research into privacy continue to prompt questions about contemporary notions and issues of privacy. At PRIVACY we ask such questions in an ongoing exchange with scholars and practitioners working on privacy today. We do this by inviting scholars and practitioners to seminars and workshops at the centre, by meeting them in fora like CPDP.ai and the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP), and by conducting interdisciplinary research with a past-present dimension (e.g. STAY HOME). While historical research helps contemporary privacy professionals to pose questions regarding the assumptions that underlie notions of privacy, current debates on privacy exemplify the historical and cultural situatedness of notions of privacy.

Tracing Impressions of Privacy in Paratexts

A small group of scholars assembled in the Italian city of Verona on 16 and 17 May 2024 for a symposium dedicated to the study of early modern privacy in paratextual sources. Some twenty interested students in book history from the University of Verona also attended the opening day.

The symposium was organized by Liam Benison (University of Verona) and Jelena Bakić (Free University of Bolzano) with the aim of developing a scholarly conversation between the fields of privacy studies and paratextual studies. The idea for the project grew out of the researchers’ early work on privacy conducted with the support of Mette Birkedal Bruun and colleagues at the Centre for Privacy Studies (PRIVACY).

Although paratexts have the highly ‘public’ aim of presenting a written work to its audience, many early modern paratexts include representations of the authorial persona. While these are typically rhetorical, Jelena noticed through her research on sixteenth-century books written by Italian women that the paratexts also recorded social, cultural, gender and emotional expressions that might be considered private. Meanwhile Liam had become aware through his study of privacy in early modern utopianism that the paratexts of utopias also played with the thresholds between private and public. They therefore decided to bring together a small group of experts to explore the synergies of paratext and privacy in more depth.

The symposium was funded by the University of Verona and supported by Federica Formiga, Associate Professor in book history and contemporary publishing in the Department of Cultures and Civilizations at the University of Verona.

Verona, although known today more for the romantic heroes of an early modern English play, was once an important centre of publishing in the Venetian Republic. The city has maintained a long legacy of book culture, being home to what claims to be the oldest, continually active library in the world. The Biblioteca Capitolare was founded beside the cathedral in the fifth century as a scriptorium for writing and copying books on vellum and parchment. Today it houses many important early manuscipt and printed books including incunabuli.

The symposium was divided in two parts. Thursday morning was devoted to four lectures discussing the state of the art and methodologies of the fields of privacy studies and paratextual studies. 

Mette Birkedal Bruun (Director of PRIVACY, University of Copenhagen) presented via Zoom a survey of the work of scholars at PRIVACY who question assumptions about the public and private as being quite separate spheres and purely modern phenomena. She stressed the importance of asking the ‘wh’ questions such as for whom is something private, how, why, where and when?

Federica Formiga discussed the importance of paratexts as sources for interpreting the reception of books. She highlighted the use of rhetorical techniques such as the captatio benevolentiae used in early modern dedicatory epistles to capture the goodwill of readers, negotiate patronage relations and define works for a particular audience.

Michaël Green (University of Łódź and co-founding editor of the Brill book series Studies in the History of Privacy) discussed some important considerations when publishing in the field of privacy studies, including the use of definitions (however loose), a clear structure, and editors’ expectation of the use of multiple or corroborative sources.

Finally, Jelena Bakić looked at how methodologies from the fields of early modern paratext and privacy studies could be combined for a productive study of the meaning of privacy through paratextual sources. Highlighting Maria Terzoli’s view of paratexts as ‘autobiographic public space’, Jelena argued that, while we cannot expect to discover an author’s experience of privacy through the public medium of the paratext, we may discern ideal conceptions of privacy when paratexts are contextualized through an understanding of contemporary social, cultural, gender and emotional expectations. Jelena concluded with the reflection that we can read in paratexts the mechanisms by which people’s private thoughts or feelings were managed or reshaped when communicated in public, and therefore, evaluate the success of social and political regimes in controlling the private.

The programme for Thursday afternoon and Friday morning was dedicated to discussing papers presented by eight researchers.

Federica Formiga considered paratextual traces of the competition between Jewish itinerant printer Gershom Soncino (1460–1534) and his more successful and renowned rival Aldus Manutius (c. 1450–1515). Stefano Cassini (Università Cattolica del Santa Cuore, Milan) compared Manutius’ paratexts and letters to shed light on how he re-presented events of his life in his paratexts.

Valentina Sestini (Sapienza, University of Rome and Editor of the journal Paratesto) discussed the topos of exile and ‘unjust misfortunes’ narrated in the paratexts of Muzio Oddi (1569–1639). Laura Mattioli (University of Durham) examined how Anton Francesco Doni’s ‘Mondo Savio e Pazzo’ (‘Wise and Mad World’) was privatized in expurgated editions published to conform with Counter-Reformation ideology. Finally Alexa Zildjian (University of St Andrews), considering power and secrets in British paratexts, showed how a person’s relative anonymity might be exposed by becoming the subject of a dedicatory epistle.

On Friday morning, Lars Cyril Nørgaard (PRIVACY) examined how private states are made public in the paratexts of early modern Lutheran funeral books from Denmark. Paolo Tinti (University of Bologna) showed examples of the paratexts of early modern academic books that reveal aspects of scholars’ relations. Michaël Green (University of Łódź) examined prefaces of the scholarly books of the French Huguenot Jean Rou (1638-1711) for traces of privacy.

The papers demonstrated a rich variety of ways in which aspects of the private may be perceived as imbricated with the public aims of the paratext. The researchers are now working on a book project.

Past Privacy Matters

On 3rd April 2024, the workshop “Past Privacy Matters: How to Study It and Why” attracted an audience of sixty-nine students and professors at the Federal University of Santa Maria (UFSM) in Santa Maria, Brazil, in addition to thirty-three attending online.

The workshop was organized by LAPS (Latin American Privacy Studies) and the postgraduate programme in history at UFSM (PPGH) in collaboration with the Centre for Privacy Studies (PRIVACY) at the University of Copenhagen. Natacha Klein Käfer (PRIVACY) designed the programme to bring together a small team of speakers, and Taís Tomazi (UFSM) arranged logistics on the ground with the help of PPGH students. The five lectures provoked an engaging discussion in Portuguese and English about the meaning of privacy and the challenges of studying it.

Speakers and participants were warmly welcomed by José Remedi, Professor of History and Vice-Dean of Humanities at UFSM. Professor Remedi expressed solidarity with striking university workers calling for improved wages and conditions.

In the opening lecture, Natacha Klein Käfer, Assistant Professor at PRIVACY, presented a methodological introduction to historical privacy studies. She gave an overview of the diverse research of the Centre for Privacy Studies, including publications and ongoing projects. Teams of scholars at PRIVACY focus on five key domains of knowledge: privacy in the context of law, health, the home, urban spaces and belief. An important tool of research are the heuristic zones developed by Professor Mette Birkedal Bruun, Director of PRIVACY [1]. The heuristic zones are neither a method, theory or result, but rather a tool for analysing the meaning of privacy in different contexts.

Natacha considered some questions privacy scholars ask, which may include, Who gets to decide what will be private? Is privacy imposed against someone’s will or willingly taken and defined? The following discussion highlighted that, although scholars are necessarily concerned with problems of identifying examples of privacy in different situations, the more important objective is not to define privacy in a concrete way but rather to focus on questions of its fluidity, how it is interconnected with aspects of the public. A withdrawal from public life, for example, may involve negotiating and giving public notice of the withdrawal.

The second session was presented online by Johannes Ljungberg, Assistant Professor at PRIVACY, on the topic of “What privacy are we talking about?” Johannes reviewed the historiography of privacy in the twentieth century in the context of the enshrining of privacy as a right in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Johannes argued that Jürgen Habermas’s theory of the public sphere has skewed thinking on privacy because, while it is commonly claimed that privacy did not exist in the premodern period, it is rarely recognized that the same is true for the public sphere as Habermas defined it.

Johannes sparked a good discussion with four propositions about privacy. Particularly interesting is the proposition that “privacy is a product of social interaction”. This refers to the idea that we often only notice privacy when we lose it, as a result of some social intrusion. Johannes suggested that this may be a recurring historical phenomenon. One example was the call for privacy to be recognized as a right, by Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis in 1890 [2]. The historical context was the rapid spread of photography and newspapers, which, according to Warren and Brandeis, was turning gossip into a trade, broadcasting the prurient details of people’s private sexual affairs.

In “Researching privacy through the history of emotions: voices from the margins”, Jelena Bakić, Researcher at the Free University of Bolzano, presented three case studies from Renaissance Italy of two women and a man who shared personal reflections in dedicatory epistles to their published books. Jelena’s research demonstrates that paratexts can reveal significant insights into the particular circumstances and concerns of individual writers, despite the commonplace that paratexts are merely rhetorical.

One of Jelena’s cases was that of Camilla Herculiana, an apothecary and natural philosopher from sixteenth-century Padua, who complains that the time she has to write and work is severely restricted by her responsibility to her husband, caring for her children, and the demands of household management. Although women were expected to declare their dedication to husband and family, Camilla’s words also express an emotional and personal protest against the position of women in her society. Jelena’s vivid examples showed how the public and private are intertwined in women’s and men’s paratexts. Although the published paratext is a public statement, the public persona it presents generally reveals some details about the individual’s life. Its public and private meanings lie therefore in what the writer chooses to make public about their private experience.

In “Privacy and the novel: a history of utopian possibilities”, Liam Benison, Researcher at the University of Verona and University of Porto, discussed how utopias have been used by scholars as sources to understand the history of privacy. He argued that utopian texts are of great importance to the history of privacy because the problem of the private is at the heart of utopian thinking. His research focuses on how representations of doors in utopian architectures open up insights into how utopian writers conceived of privacy and frequently saw it as a threat in an ideal society, although they often availed themselves of privacy in their own lives.

Liam presented an overview of the methodology he is developing in the CETAPS Digital Lab at the University of Porto, which applies PRIVACY tools using digital humanities methods in practice. Liam’s presentation was followed by an interesting discussion regarding literature and privacy, and also about surveillance and privacy in the early modern period and today.

The final session, “Privacy through quantitative sources: a possible encounter”, was presented by Taís Tomazi, PhD candidate at UFSM. Taís discussed the value of the use of quantitative sources and considered some of the disadvantages. She looked at the use of databases, fontes seriais versus qualitative information and information derived from personal testimonies such as diaries or official documents such as legal trial records. By focusing on inventories from the nineteenth century in southern Brazil, Taís showed how it is possible to reconstruct private space and private life, and what are the challenges. A serial history, Taís’s research shows, offers an important and valuable avenue of research for the history of privacy.

Taís provoked an engaging discussion in which Professor Luís Augusto Farinatti (UFSM) pointed to how a sense of privacy can affect the way in which certain facts of history enter or do not enter the historical record. He gave the example of Gaúcho households in the borderlands between Imperial Brazil and Argentina that owned knives used in feuds. The knives legally had to be registered, but if a researcher looks for knives in the registers, they almost never find them, because families regarded the cultural tradition of feuding as private and none of the business of state authorities.

The workshop demonstrated a strong interest in historical privacy studies among students and staff at UFSM, and was productive in fostering new scholarly contacts between the speakers and UFSM researchers. The authors of this post are very thankful to Natacha for the opportunity to present at this event and for the warm welcome we received at UFSM. It was a wonderful and memorable experience and we hope the first of many future engagements with the new scholarly friends we met.

References

1. Mette Birkedal Bruun, ‘Privacy in Early Modern Christianity and Beyond: Traces and Approaches’, Annali Dell’Istituto Storico Italo-Germanico in Trento, 44.2 (2018), 33–54.

2. Samuel D. Warren and Louis D. Brandeis, ‘The Right to Privacy’, Harvard Law Review, 4.5 (1890), 193–220.