Beyond the Public/Private Divide: New Perspectives on Sexuality, Hospitality, and Diplomacy within Royal Spaces

: This article presents the theme of the special edition, provides a case study, and sets out the ways in which the contributions consider how notions of privacy and the private emerged, influenced, or existed within and around the institution of monarchy. One of the key ways to tackle privacy is to investigate the idea of ‘access’ and ‘accessibility’, which is an underlying theme throughout the contributions of this special edition. Each contributor informs the phenomena of privacy, and thus privacy studies, through their research. These articles seek to understand the ways in which sexuality, hospitality, and diplomacy are shaped by notions of privacy and the private, as a means of contextualising and understanding the nuances of gender, power, and the interrelations of rulership.