Protective Anonymity (2024)

Anonymous: The Performance of Hidden Identities

Thomas DeGloma

Published:

2023

Online ISBN:

9780226828800

Print ISBN:

9780226828794

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Anonymous: The Performance of Hidden Identities

Thomas DeGloma

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Pages

33–66

  • Published:

    September 2023

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OXFORD ACADEMIC STYLE

DeGloma, Thomas, 'Protective Anonymity', Anonymous: The Performance of Hidden Identities (Chicago, IL, 2023; online edn, Chicago Scholarship Online, 23 May 2024), https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226828800.003.0002, accessed 7 June 2024.

CHICAGO STYLE

DeGloma, Thomas. "Protective Anonymity." In Anonymous: The Performance of Hidden Identities University of Chicago Press, 2023. Chicago Scholarship Online, 2024. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226828800.003.0002.

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Abstract

This chapter considers the ways that individuals and communities use anonymity for protective reasons in various situations. First, the chapter explores several cases, including anonymous authorship, to demonstrate how anonymity is used to protect individuals from embarrassment, shame, ostracism, or some other form of stigma or punitive consequence. By using anonymity to escape these consequences, actors effectively sidestep the social power that operates to enforce compliance with normative rules and systems of meaning. However, they also reinforce these rules by performing the need to hide their personal identities while engaging in certain behaviors. Building on this discussion, this chapter then shows how actors use various social ethics of anonymity, rooted in different circ*mstances and settings, to shield personal identities. To this end, the chapter addresses the cases of anonymous altruism and charity, confession, masquerade, and anonymity in academic research. It then explores various anonymous communities and forums, including addiction and recovery organizations and other mutual support communities, as well as anonymous forums and communities that exist solely online. Next, the chapter addresses the protective dimensions of anonymous consumption. Finally, this chapter concludes by discussing the ways that actors exploit modes of protective anonymity for deceitful or nefarious purposes.

Keywords: protective anonymity, stigma, anonymous authorship, anonymous charity, confession, masquerade, academic anonymity, anonymous communities, computer-mediated forums, anonymous consumption

Subject

Society and Culture

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