What Is at Stake in Archaeological Knowledge Production

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Presidential Session: What Is at Stake? The Impacts of Inequity and Harassment on the Practice of Archaeology" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Recent years have witnessed a sea change in anthropological discourse concerning how gender bias and a lack of diversity has affected the work that archaeologists produce, interest that dovetails with current concerns about equity and safety issues. More broadly, Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) and queer scholars along with practitioners of feminist, queer, and Indigenous studies have questioned the particular frameworks of objectivity on which science stakes its privileged access to knowledge. In this presentation, I reflect on my own recent research and that of other archaeologists on the production and dissemination of knowledge in our field. Who gets to write the predominant discourse of archaeology? Whose voices are elevated and whose are diminished? This prerogative decides the gatekeepers of our field—those who get to determine the prevailing narratives of our human past. A reflection on these issues and the inclusion of women, BIPOC, and other oppressed groups in the narrative of archaeology (and science more broadly) are crucial if we want new questions asked and different perspectives on how best to answer existing ones.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Presidential Session: What Is at Stake? The Impacts of Inequity and Harassment on the Practice of Archaeology   •
• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 32304