On the evening of February 25th, the 16th session of Rüstem’s Literary Club interdisciplinary panel series, organized by the esteemed Salamis Ayşegül Şentuğ, took place.
Moderated by Aycan Garip, the discussion featured transcultural psychotherapist Viola Edward De Glanville, art historian Mariza Bargilly, and PRIO Cyprus Centre researcher Mete Hatay, focusing on the theme of "Intimacy."
In his presentation, Hatay explored the theory of cultural intimacy. By citing Anthropologist Michael Herzfeld, Hatay argued that cultural privacy is employed to identify aspects that may be a source of external shame yet serve as a shared social assurance within a group. he also emphasized that "embarrassment" is one of the most crucial emotional-political tools in the construction of cultural intimacy. Such intimacy structures are often utilized as mechanisms of intra-group power. For instance, in order to avoid external disgrace or feelings of shame, defensive mechanisms like "keeping internal matters within the group" are developed. As a result, certain issues are consistently ignored or silenced to protect the group’s cultural privacy. This, in turn, sustains resistance and fortifies the walls of privacy, enabling certain (usually self appointed) "powerful knights" to maintain internal dominance.
In the final part of his talk, Hatay expanded on this concept by presenting various examples from around the world.
