Eli Bartra
Born	(1947-09-06) 6 September 1947 Mexico City
Nationality	Mexican
Education	Doctor of Philosophy (UNAM) Maîtrise Specialisée en Esthétique (Paris 1)
Alma mater	National Autonomous University of Mexico Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University
Occupation(s)	Philosopher, researcher, and university professor
Employer	Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana
Spouse	John Mraz
Children	Maiala Meza Bartra Anna Lee Mraz Bartra
Parent(s)	Anna Murià Agustí Bartra

Eli Bartra (born 6 September 1947, in Mexico City) is a feminist philosopher and a pioneer in researching women and folk art in different places of the world, but particularly, in Mexico. She is the daughter of the writers Anna Murià and Agustí Bartra, two Catalan refugees in Mexico.

Education

She has a PhD in philosophy from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), 1990. Between 1973 and 1974, she studied in the PHD program of Sociology of Literature at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences in Paris. In 1973, she obtained her degree of Maîtrise Specialisée in Esthétique from Panthéon-Sorbonne University. She studied the BA in philosophy at National Autonomous University of Mexico.

Career

In 1968, she coordinated the exhibitions in the Olympic Organizing Committee in Mexico; she also coordinated the art expositions in the University Museum of Sciences and Art (UNAM) between 1967 and 1969. She worked at the magazine Artes Visuales, belonging to the Museum of Modern Art, from 1977 to 1980.^[1] She has been a researcher and professor since 1976.^[2]

Bartra has been a professor at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Campus Xochimilco (UAM-X) since 1977, where she was named Distinguished Professor in 2017. She is a member of the Sistema Nacional de Investigadores (SNI), at the highest level (Level III).^[3] In 1982, she was the cofounder of the research area “Women, Identity and Power,” within the Department of Politics and Culture. She has been coordinator of the Masters in Women's Studies, 1994–1996; 1998-2000 and the coordinator of the Feminist Studies PHD Program from 2017 to 2019.^[4]

Bartra has brought to bear a feminist gaze on visual arts and women in Mexico. She has written many books, chapters and articles. Also, she has been a visiting professor in different countries, including Spain, Brazil, New Zealand, Argentina, Japan, United Kingdom and the USA.

Feminist methodology

Bartra has insisted on the necessity of developing “feminist methodologies” applicable to the case of Mexico. These are largely absent or underdeveloped, due to what Bartra defines as “intellectual neocolonization”. With this situation, she denounces that in the underdeveloped countries, and in Mexico in particular, feminist theory has used tools and methodologies alien to their specific contexts and subjectivities. Dissatisfied, then, with the dominant trend of multicultural and political correctness in research, Bartra proposes a feminist methodology that recognizes its anti-sexist perspective and deconstructs it. What she states, in this sense, is not a methodology with a different procedure or object of study, but rather, a methodology that considers the “feminist point of view” as a way of deconstructing sexism in research, and the purpose, above all, is the liberation of woman. The sexist bias dominates in almost all intellectual production in our patriarchal societies.

Publications

References