Diversity and Strong(er) Objectivity in Historical Archaeology

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Gender Revolutions: Disrupting Heteronormative Practices and Epistemologies" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Feminist archaeologists and philosophers of science have long argued that a person’s knowledge is shaped by their identities and their position within society; standpoint theory has specifically contended that marginalized people have an epistemic advantage over their privileged peers in understanding systems of oppression. Historical archaeologists study diverse past communities, yet we ourselves are largely straight, cisgender, and white. In this paper, I will present an analysis of my interviews with 72 archaeologists (33 of whom are historical archaeologists) in order to understand how our standpoints shape the research we pursue and the knowledge we create. Drawing on Sandra Harding’s theory of strong objectivity, I argue that we must diversify our discipline in order to gain a clearer understanding of the experiences of marginalized people in the past, and I suggest specific actions that archaeologists can take to foster this revolution in the field.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2020   •
• Gender Revolutions: Disrupting Heteronormative Practices and Epistemologies

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 341