Islands of Privacy

It seems like everyone worries about privacy these days, especially online. But how we use the Internet is only a subset of the ways we work to achieve privacy in our everyday lives. Islands of Privacy gives us an intimate view into the full range of ordinary people's sometimes extraordinary efforts to preserve the border between themselves and the rest of the world. Running the gamut from the hilarious to the disturbing, Christena Nippert-Eng tours the myriad arenas where privacy battles are fought, lost, and won. She explores how we manage our secrets, the contents of our wallets and purses, our phone calls and email, and interactions along the perimeters of our homes. She discovers that we all practice the art of selective concealment and disclosure, an important balancing act that governs a surprisingly wide range of behavior. Violations of privacy and anxiety about its future also come under Nippert-Eng's microscope as she crafts a compelling argument that successfully managing privacy is critical for successfully maintaining our relationships with each other and our selves. Book jacket.

Christena Nippert-Eng is associate professor of sociology and associate chair of the Department of Social Sciences at the Illinois Institute of Technology. She is the author of Home and Work: Negotiating Boundaries through Everyday Life.