The discrepancy between the research plan and its feasibility tends to present itself in a particularly stark manner at the beginning of a research project. Such instances, in which the object and situation of study interfere with the researcher’s hypotheses, constitute the contact zone between the researcher’s capacities and the wider epistemic field. The latter, albeit not yet fully grasped, then starts to co-author the project, directing the further course of investigation. This reflective process usually remains hidden behind the historian’s work. These interferences, however, deserve further attention-especially in the light of the epistemic hegemony so often evinced by transregional art history. They shall be foregrounded in this presentation of the initial research results of my new project on urban places of worship in Beirut.
Martina Becker PhD in Architectural History, Middle East Technical University Ankara, 2013.
