Alison Wylie (PhD 1982, SUNY Binghamton)
Research Interests:
Philosophy of the social and historical sciences; history and philosophy of archaeology; archaeological research ethics; feminist theory and feminist philosophy of science
"The focus of my research is a cluster philosophical questions about evidential reasoning, ideals of objectivity, and the role of values in science that arise in archaeological practice. Initially this interest was sparked by fieldwork in historical archaeology and on prehistoric sites in the
U.S.
southwest and central
Mexico
in the 1970s and 1980s, at just the time when the New Archaeology was generating intense debate about the scientific status of archaeology. I argued for a pluralistic approach to questions about the goals and practice of archaeology in my dissertation, Positivism and the New Archaeology (1982), and subsequently expanded this line of inquiry in response to the relativist challenges posed by postprocessual critics of the New Archaeology. In the essays included in Thinking from Things (2002) I develop a model of evidential reasoning designed to capture the strategies of triangulation and the role of diverse bodies of background knowledge in stabilizing the interpretation of archaeological data as evidence. This is the basis, in turn, for formulating realistic ideals of objectivity—ideals that make sense of the ways in which the integrity of empirical research can be enhanced (rather than compromised) by the values and interests that researchers bring to their work. I am currently developing these lines of thinking in connection with a project on feminist standpoint theory, and I am actively interested in ethical issues that are an urgent concern for archaeologists, particularly as articulated by an “ethic of stewardship.”"
Personal Web Page: [Click Here]
Course Web Pages:
PHIL 206 / POLS 212 / WS 206, Philosophies of Feminism - Spring 2012
PHIL 560, Philosophy of Science: Science and Values - Winter 2012
ARCHY 574 / PHIL 574, Meta-Archaeology: Philosophy and Archaeology - Autumn 2011
ARCHY 467, Research Ethics in Archaeology - Fall 2009
Projects:
Biological Futures in a Globalized World
Science Studies Network
Hypatia, Journal of Feminist Philosophy
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Selected Publications:
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2012
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"Standpoint Matters, in Feminist Philosophy of Science": Presidential Address, American Philosophical Association (Pacific Division), April 2012 (to appear in the APA Proceedings, December 2012).
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2012
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“Indigenous Heritage Concerns from the Ground Up: Identifying and Avoiding Harm”: to appear in Ethics of Archaeology II, edited by Christopher and Geoffrey Scarre, Cambridge University Press, in press (2012).
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2012
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“The Feminism Question in Science: What Does it Mean to ‘Do Social Science as a Feminist’?”, 2nd edition of the Handbook of Feminist Research, edited by Sharlene Hesse-Biber, 2012, pp. 544-556.
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2011
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“Critical Distance: Stabilizing Evidential Claims in Archaeology,” in Evidence, Inference and Enquiry, edited by Philip Dawid, William Twining, and Mimi Vasilaki, British Academy Publications, 2011, pp. 371-394.
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2010
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“Archaeological Facts in Transit: The ‘Eminent Mounds’ of Central North America”, in How Well do ‘Facts’ Travel?: The Dissemination of Reliable Knowledge, edited by Peter Howlett and Mary S. Morgan, Cambridge University Press, pp. 301-322. |
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2009
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“The Appropriation of Archaeological Finds,” co-authored with George Nicholas, in The Ethics of Cultural Appropriation edited by James O. Young and Conrad G. Brunk, Routledge, forthcoming.
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2008
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“Agnotology in/of Archaeology,” Agnotology: The Making and Unmaking of Ignorance, edited by Robert N. Proctor and Londa Schiebinger; Stanford University Press, pp. 183-205.
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2007
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Doing Archaeology as a Feminist, co-edited with Margaret W. Conkey, Special Issue of the Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, Volume 14.3.
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2005
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The Promise and Perils of an Ethic of Stewardship. In: Embedding Ethics, edited by Lynn Meskell and Peter Pells, Berg Press, London. Pp. 47-68.
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2002
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Thinking from Things: Essays in the Philosophy of Archaeology, University of California Press, Berkeley CA
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2000
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Ethics in American Archaeology: Challenges for the 1990s, 2econd revised edition, co-edited with Mark J. Lynott, Society for American Archaeology Special Report Series, Washington D.C..
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Last Update: September 2012
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