NiTRO + Creative Matters

Perspectives on creative arts in higher education

METHODOLOGIES IN FLUX

  • PATRICIA AMORIM
NAVIGATING CULTURAL TRANSLATION IN PHOTOGRAPHIC PRACTICE RESEARCH — This paper examines the methodological tensions and transformations in my practice-led research exploring photographic representation of gendered bodies across Brazilian and Australian cultural contexts. Through analysing my evolving methodology, I demonstrate how convergence of feminist epistemology, decolonial theory, and photographic practice generates new knowledge at the intersection of theory and creative production.

The research employs a quadruplex reflexive approach – auto reflexive, reflexive, dialogic, and interrogative – that adjusts to emerging insights from participant interactions and studio experimentation. This adaptive methodology creates what Bhabha terms a ‘third space’ where cultural translation occurs as a transformative process reshaping both research and researcher. Traditional crafts like embroidery on hammocks integrate with digital projection techniques, creating a material-digital dialogue that bridges cultural traditions and contemporary practice. By situating the gendered body as a site of cultural inscription and resistance, the research develops innovative techniques that materialize theoretical concepts while challenging conventional representations.

Keywords Feminist methodology, photography, intercultural creative practice, creative practice research 

DOI 10.65289/creativematters.2025.10.1

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Patricia Amorim is a contemporary artist and researcher exploring gendered bodies from a feminist standpoint. Her practice-led research examines how digital photography affects concepts of gendered bodies in cross-cultural settings. Amorim is a PhD candidate at Edith Cowan University and recipient of an ECU Higher Degree Research Program Scholarship.

Main image: Amorim P. Duplo Series, Boorloo (Perth), 2023. 

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This paper reflects on a methodology within a Creative Writing PhD that recalibrates selected Buddhist Pāli Jātakas through a parallel reading of Derrida’s Specters of Marx and Buddhist texts on samsarā (rebirth). This cross-cultural dialogue provides a nuanced context for rearticulating the Jātakas. The project’s ‘middle-way methodology’ avoids privileging either Western or Buddhist frameworks and adapts Smith and Dean’s (2009) ‘iterative cyclic web’ through oscillations across creative writing, cross-cultural reading, and critical inquiry.
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