Privacy as a Social Mechanism for Maintaining Inconsistency Between Identities

Résumé

Whereas in the past the issue of privacy has been examined from legal and philosophical

perspectives, the present study attempts to examine the social mechanisms that define the

boundaries of privacy by means of Social Representations Theory. Social representations

simultaneously refer to the actions of both individual and group, and consequently

belonging to several social groups means the coexistence of discrete and at times

conflicting social representations. As long as the representations are not confronted with

their dissonance and inconsistency – oftentimes due to privacy – they can coexist. The

issue emerges in conflict situations wherein the individual has to choose a mode of action

from several incompatible possibilities. The argument on which the present article is

based is that privacy serves as a social mechanism whose purpose is to enable individuals

to shift between inconsistent identities. We shall present three test cases to illustrate how

society, by means of its agents, constantly sets and destroys boundaries of privacy. These 

cases illuminate a complex system that functions in a dialectic of interrelations that apply

pressure in two directions: the individual on society, and society on the individual. The

innovation proposed in the present article is in viewing privacy as a mechanism for

maintaining inconsistency between identities. Central to this is the shared interest of both

group and individual to enable the coexistence of the individual’s different identities,

whose social representations are incompatible.