1.8KB
SECRET citizens
This theme explores the politics of privacy in public. How do citizens claim personal and private spaces in public contexts? Is the desire for concealment and secrecy an act of resistance against constant surveillance and tyranny of transparency? How and in what ways can clothes keep secrets?Citizens have always been watched (and watched others),and they are under even more surveillance, as a result of pervasive digital technologies.Privacy is critical to the construction of identity,dignity,belonging and trust.Itis a fundamental human right, encoded in the European Human Rights Act.Being a citizen has always involved giving up information in exchange for safety, identity and belonging. Being transparent is seen as being central to being a “good citizen”. Yet being humanalso involves keeping some things private and personal secret.
Exploring secrets, via a history of clothing inventions, opens up new ways of looking at other kinds of citizens. We get to look beyond ‘normal’ bodies for how non-normative, ignored, overlooked or systematically erased subjects carve out ways of being in public space. This theme explores who needs secrets and what is considered secret at different times through history. We can map how changing ideas of safety, risks and threats move from inside to outside different bodies. And, while much research explores clothing for what it reveals-what it tells us and others about us –clothing is also very informative when asked to reveal what it conceals.
Examples of patents to be explored in this theme: 150 years of pockets provide a plethora of data for exploring how people (particularly women & marginalised people) have claimed privacy in public. Examples include safety secret pockets, travel pockets, nursing pockets plus pockets to protect data/privacy (self-defending)