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:
ARCHY 469/570: Histories of Archaeological Theory – Fall 2008
HUM 596: Graduate Micro-seminars
Democratizing Science – Fall 2008, Winter 2009, Spring 2009
HUM 596: Graduate Micro-seminars
Presuppositions of Practice: Philosophical Issues in the Social Sciences – Winter 2008
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Selected Publications:
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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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Value-Free Science? Ideals and Illusions, co-edited with Harold Kincaid and John Dupre, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
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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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2007
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"The Integrity of Narratives: Epistemic Constraints on Multivocality,” in Evaluating Multiple Narratives: Beyond Nationalist, Colonialist, Imperialist Archaeologies, edited by Junko Habu, Clare Fawcett, and John Matsunaga, Springer Publications, pp. 201-212.
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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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