Researching Culture/s and the Omitted Footnote: Questions on the Practice of Feminist Art History

This book chapter, included in the section 'Heteroglossia: The Hermeneutic Trap', considers the function of feminist art history in an intercultural context. 'Hegemony' and 'ideology' are two of the critical concepts deployed to approach feminist art history as a subversive but also highly visible discourse on art originating in the West, the practice of which in an international context raises a number of issues concerning the power dynamics of research. 'Research' is here understood as a complex activity, positing the individual (researcher) and her subjects in a process of interaction that is necessarily ideologically bound. By using examples from her own research in Eastern and Southern Europe, the author considers the different and asymmetrical positions a feminist art historian can occupy today in diverse but interconnected social contexts that exist in a global space of material and cultural hierarchies. What can be 'translated' from one social context to another, via the practice of feminist art history, as well as those 'difficult' aspects of research often edited out of the final art historical text, are two of the key issues raised in this essay.