ABSTRACT
Disclosure, as an act of revelation, presupposes that something is unknown or covered up. Apart from private and personal matters, there are several formal kinds of disclosure. Statutes require politicians or other officials to disclose financial assets; parties at law must disclose evidence to each other; 'unnamed sources' disclose confidential or scandalous information about the actions or intent of others. The dynamic effect of revelatory communication gives disclosure, and certainly non-disclosure, a kind of tension or pressure. The confiding of knowledge carries with it the potential for exposure, shifting perspectives, new confidences. Disclosure and closure, avowal and disavowal, revelation and repression, efforts to uncover and cover up are always in tension with each other, inciting, resisting and limiting one another. Disclosures come in many forms: a declaration, a confession, a discovery, a revelation, an uncovering, an opening up. This chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book.
