Approaching Privacy and Selfhood through Narratives Nandita Chaudhary and Indu KauraThis paper examines the notion of privacy in the Indian cultural contextby utilising narratives from three research studies done at New Delhi.Beginning with the cultural understanding of the terms privacy and selfthrough the voices of children and their parents, the paper addresses keyassumptions of the individualised self. These assumptions are then examinedfrom a cultural perspective and juxtaposed with issues of privacy and socialrelationships, using examples. An attempt is made to articulate selfhood asexperienced in India. Through the narratives the emerging picture of privacycan be constructed from two positions, the parents and the young adolescents. The findings display that the older generation clearly finds privacy adivisive force for which there is no place within the family. The children onthe other hand, define privacy more in terms of “being on one’s own” ratherthan “away from other people”. The notion of privacy adjusted well with theconception of the self within the cultural context. Indian youth were found tobe socialised to put others, particularly family members before them.Everyday talk is replete with references to other people, over and abovereferences to objects. The child is constantly instructed on socially appropriatebehaviour by adults and is mostly engaged in social games through language1that involve interpersonal play. From the different studies referred in this textit seems that the self in these situations seemed to be defined more from theposition of the “other”. This is especially true for relationships within thefamily. Despite the socially-oriented themes during childhood, it seems thatthe urban educated youth are struggling for the sense of individuality at thisdevelopmental phase of their lives. How things will turn out for them as theytake on adult roles, only time will tell. Another contribution of this paper is in terms of method. The studiesreferred are examples of qualitative approaches to the study of psychologicalphenomena. Regarding selfhood, an important finding of the different studiessubstantiates the construction of selfhood as predominantly defined andapplied in terms of significant others. In this manner, the investigation of anyself-related study has to incorporate the “other” in a procedural manner toallow the local sense of self to stand out and speak for itself. It is importanttherefore, to accept that it is not only method, but also the theory behind themethod that will ensure an appropriate access to and analysis of findings inresearch pursuits._____________________________________________________________Address correspondence to the authors:Nandita Chaudhary, Ph. D. – [email protected] Kaura – [email protected] Privacy and Selfhood through Narratives Ever since the categories of Individualism and Collectivism wereintroduced into academic literature, social scientists have had a usefulclassification to invoke while studying different communities, see Valsiner,1994. Recent studies have assumed greater complexity of individual and socialprocesses and plurality has become more acceptable than it has ever beenbefore. Post-modernism has helped the reception of this plurality in all phasesof human activity. For those of us who are engaged in research in developingcountries, the acceptance of theory and research techniques generated from the“White community” was facilitated by the fall out of our colonial past. Indianswere used to listening to “white masters”. The influence of political freedomtook a long time to percolate down to the area of academics and many of ushave had to deal with multiplicity and conflicting forces even withinourselves. An added dimension has been the prevalence of the Englishlanguage, particularly for University education in India. On the one hand thereis a struggle for indigenous research (Gergen, Gulerce, Lock & Misra, 1996)and on the other, there is the need to fall back on the security of the writtenword. 3This paper is a presentation of the ways and means that we havedeveloped to deal with some of the conflicts that are basic to the discussion ofcultural psychology. Taking the specific area of privacy and selfhood as anexample, we have tried to come up with illustrations of how innovativemethods can be developed. In doing so, several findings have been unearthedwhich may otherwise have gone unnoticed. Thus, apart from the findings,there are some significant methodological implications of such work. The definition of “culture” that one ascribes to in research is animportant feature in the interpretation of the findings. The position that isproductive for all of us is more appropriately described as a “constructive orinclusive” rather than an “exclusive” approach to phenomena a“characterising” rather than “defining” approach (Markova, 2000; Valsiner,1994). If we accept a position wherein culture is treated more as verb ratherthan a noun, maybe the task would be further simplified. See also Ratner,2000).In Sanskrit, related terms interestingly, are all action-based. Kr is asyllable that refers to action, Kratur or Karya (Hindi) is an act, Karma isaction, Samskara is the imprinting of past action on the self and Samskritimeans tradition or culture. All these words have the kr sound to indicate thedoing or acting element.4The key issues raised in the paper include discussions on the origin ofthe self within academic discourse, the construct of privacy and theimplications of the latter for the construction of selfhood within a specifiedtemporal and spatial context. Data is also presented to demonstrate the“otherness” of the self as presented in everyday talk in families. This paper alludes to data from three studies. All three are located inNew Delhi and deal with familial correlates of stress among adolescents,social axioms and language socialisation. Defining SelfhoodThe term “self” as a pronoun and pronominal adjective, is akin to anassertion