Privacy as a practice: Exploring the relational and spatial dynamics of HIV-related information seeking

Abstract

This paper is an exploration of the relational and spatial dynamics of privacy in the context of HIV-related information seeking. It is a study of how a specific group of people, women living with HIV in London, go about doing privacy when seeking information in relation to their health. It is commonplace to stress the salience of adopting a contextual approach to privacy. We explore this further, asking what treating privacy as a highly situated practice rather than as a discrete value or right can tell us about what constitutes the private versus the public. Based on the analysis of 41 qualitative interviews on Internet use by women living with HIV, the aim of the paper is twofold: to use the case of how people living with a chronic stigmatized illness go about seeking health information to develop a relational and spatial understanding of privacy; and to use this situated case to explore alternative methods for researching privacy as an embedded and highly contingent practice. © 2011 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.