Ordinary letters offer housebreaking access to private lives beyond their content

Evidence

French historian Roger Chartier gives immense value to epistolarity sans qualité, not for the information conveyed but in the sense that Robert Musil uses the term in The Man Without Qualities, for entry into the affective and political expectations produced and the reciprocities they demanded and required. Ordinary epistolarity provides what Chartier calls an act of “housebreaking” into private lives. — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 1523

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines Chartier’s ‘epistolarity sans qualite’ — ordinary, unremarkable correspondence read not for information but for affective and political expectations.
• QUESTION: How does the ‘housebreaking’ metaphor shape archival ethics — what violence does reading ordinary letters do?