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The Interplay of Evidential Constraints and Political Interests: Recent Archaeological Research on Gender

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Alison Wylie
Alison Wylie*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada N6A 3K7
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Abstract

In the last few years, conference programs and publications have begun to appear that reflect a growing interest, among North American archaeologists, in research initiatives that focus on women and gender as subjects of investigation. One of the central questions raised by these developments has to do with their "objectivity" and that of archaeology as a whole. To the extent that they are inspired by or aligned with explicitly political (feminist) commitments, the question arises of whether they do not themselves represent an inherently partial and interest-specific standpoint, and whether their acceptance does not undermine the commitment to value neutrality and empirical rigor associated with scientific approaches to archaeology. I will argue that, in fact, a feminist perspective, among other critical, explicitly political perspectives, may well enhance the conceptual integrity and empirical adequacy of archaeological knowledge claims, where this is centrally a matter of deploying evidential constraints.

Resumen

Resumen

Durante los últimos años han comenzado a aparecer programas de conferencias y publicaciones que reflejan un creciente interés entre arqueólogos norteamericanos en iniciativas de investigación centradas en la mujer y el rol de los sexos como temas de estudio. Uno de los principales interrogantes planteados por estos desarrollos se refiere a la objetividad de estas investigaciones y de la arqueología en general. En la medida en que tales estudios están inspirados por, o comprometidos con programas políticos feministas explícitos, surge la pregunta de si no representan un punto de vista intrínsecamente parcial relacionado a intereses específicos, y de si su aceptación no socava el compromiso con la neutralidady el rigor empírico asociados con enfoques científicos en arqueología. Sostengo que una perspectiva feminista, entre otras perspectivas críticas políticamente explícitos, Men puede fortalecer la integridad conceptual y la pertinencia empírica del conocimiento arqueológico, cuando se trata principalmente de expandir los límites de la evidencia.

Type
Articles
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 57 , Issue 1 , January 1992 , pp. 15 - 35
Copyright
Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 1992

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References

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