Privacy, sanctuary and privatism

Privacy is one of the key meanings of home that traverses disciplinary perspectives. The notion of home as a site separate from the public sphere of work and politics, as a private realm that provides a respite from the public sphere and facilitates making and carrying out individual preferences, is found throughout academic literature and popular notions of home. This article provides an overview of privacy as a meaning of home, with particular focus on the social, ideological, and political underpinnings of the notion of home as a private space, and its historical transformations. The article begins with an outline of what privacy means in relation to home, its historical emergence, and its social and material correlates. It then turns to an overview of privatism, as a contemporary manifestation of privacy. Finally, the article turns to the theoretical and empirical challenges that attempt to dismantle the nexus between home and privacy, and outlines a different conceptualisation. © 2012