Down the (digital) rabbit hole

Mapping and decolonizing Safavid women's imagery in digital museums

Bibliographic Data

ID2391272
AuthorsL Rahbari (0000-0002-3840-708X, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume28
Issue4
Pages559-575
Publication date2023-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Material Culture (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1359-1835 • E-ISSN: 1460-3586
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/13591835231210438
OpenAlexW4388230968
LanguageEN
References cited26

In this article, I trace Safavid paintings depicting women's imagery online and explore the possibility of digitally mapping Safavid (1501-1736) paintings featuring women on publicly accessible platforms. Along with the practice of online mapping that led me to digital museums, I investigated the descriptions presented on three digitized paintings on different platforms to address the questions, "Where and how can Safavid paintings be digitally encountered" and "In light of the theoretical developments in the scholarship on pre-modern discourses of Safavid gender and sexuality, how do the descriptions of Safavid paintings reflect gender discourses online?" By following Safavid paintings of women online and probing the textual descriptions attached to them, and using netnographic research methods to document my experience and encounter with the digitized Safavid paintings, I explore whether the online descriptions accompanying the images could contribute to the making of decolonial knowledge about non-Western gender discourses

Art · Digital scholarship · Human sexuality · Humanities · Painting · Scholarship · Sociology · Visual arts · Gender Studies · Hispanic-African Historical Relations · Islamic Studies and History · Turkey's Politics and Society

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Open DOIOpen Access