Alison Wylie

Alison Wylie is a Canadian feminist philosopher of science at the University of Washington, Seattle (Winter and Spring) and Durham University, UK (Fall). She is recognized for her work on epistemological questions in archaeological practice and feminist research in the social sciences. Her work is primarily in social epistemology and standpoint theory, and she publishes on research ethics in archaeology.

Education and career

Wylie did her undergraduate work at Mount Allison University. She earned MAs in philosophy and anthropology and a PhD in Philosophy from Binghamton University. Prior to teaching at University of Washington Wylie taught at Washington University in St. Louis (1998–2003), Columbia University (2003–2005), and the University of Western Ontario (1985–1998).

Wylie received a Presidential Recognition Award from the [Society of American Archivists] in 1995^[1] for her work as a co-chair on the Ethics in Archaeology Committee which developed the current Principles of Archaeological Ethics in use by the SAA.^[2] Wylie was the senior editor of Hypatia, A Journal of Feminist Philosophy^[3] from 2008–2013^[4] and President of the American Philosophical Association Pacific Division during 2011–12.^[5] In 2013, SWIP (Society for Women in Philosophy) named her Distinguished Woman Philosopher of the year.^[6] In 2016 The Philosophy of Science Association elected her to serve a two-year term (January 1, 2019 through December 31, 2020) as President of the Association.^[7]

Bibliography

Books

• Material Evidence, Learning from Archaeological Practice, co-edited with Robert Chapman, Routledge, London, 2015. http://material-evidence.net/
• Value-Free Science? Ideals and Illusions, co-edited with Harold Kincaid and John Dupré, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2007.http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780195308969.do#
• Thinking From Things: Essays in the Philosophy of Archaeology, University of California Press, Berkeley CA, 2002.http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520223615
• Ethics in American Archaeology: Challenges for the 1990s, co-edited with Mark J. Lynott, Society for American Archaeology Special Report Series, Washington D.C., 1995. 2nd revised edition, Ethics in American Archaeology, Society for American Archaeology, Washington D.C., 2000.http://www.saa.org/AbouttheSociety/PrinciplesofArchaeologicalEthics/tabid/203/Default.aspx
• Breaking Anonymity: The Chilly Climate for Women Faculty, co-edited with members of the Chilly Collective, Wilfrid Laurier University Press, Waterloo Ontario, 1995.Wilfrid Laurier Press/Breaking Anonymity
• Equity Issues for Women in Archaeology, co-edited with Margaret C. Nelson and Sarah M. Nelson, Archaeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association, Number 5, Washington D.C., 1994. http://www.aaanet.org/sections/ad/equity-issues-for-women-in-archaeology/

Special issues and symposia

• Philosophy of Social Science Roundtable Annual Special Issues of Philosophy of the Social Sciences, co-edited with James Bohman and Paul A. Roth, and local Roundtable hosts; since 30.1 (March 2000). http://www.poss-rt.net/
• "Women in Philosophy: The Costs of Exclusion", and "Epistemic Justice, Ignorance, and Procedural Objectivity" (editor), Hypatia 26.2 (2011). http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/hypa.2011.26.issue-2/issuetoc
• Feminist Legacies/Feminist Futures, Hypatia 25th Anniversary Special Issue, co-edited with Lori Gruen, Hypatia, 25.4 (2010). http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/hypa.2010.25.issue-4/issuetoc
• "A More Social Epistemology: Decision Vectors, Epistemic Fairness, and Consensus in Solomon’s Social Empiricism", Perspectives on Science, 16.3 (2008). http://www.mitpressjournals.org/toc/posc/16/3
• Doing Archaeology as a Feminist, Special Issue of the Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, guest edited with Margaret W. Conkey, Volume 14.3 (2007). http://link.springer.com/journal/10816/14/3/page/1
• Epistemic Diversity and Dissent, Special Issue of Episteme: Journal of Social Epistemology, guest editor, Volume 3.1 (2006). http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayIssue?decade=2000&jid=EPI&volumeId=3&issueId=1-2&iid=8355937 https://muse.jhu.edu/journals/episteme/toc/epi3.1.html
• Feminist Science Studies, Special Issue of Hypatia, co-edited with Lynn Hankinson Nelson; Volume 19.2, Winter (2004). http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/hypa.2004.19.issue-1/issuetoc

Essays

• “A Plurality of Pluralisms: Collaborative Practice in Archaeology”: in Objectivity in Science: New Perspectives from Science and Technology Studies, edited by Flavia Padovani, Alan Richardson, and Jonathan Y. Tsou, Springer, 2015, pp. 189–210. http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-14349-1_10
• “Feminist Philosophy of Science: Standpoint Matters,” Presidential Address delivered to the Pacific Division APA, in Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association, 86.2 (2012): 47-76. http://www.apaonline.org/?page=proceedings
• “’Do Not Do Unto Others…’: Cultural Misrecognition and the Harms of Appropriation in an Open Source World,” co-authored with George Nicholas: in Appropriating the Past: Philosophical Perspectives on the Practice of Archaeology, edited by Geoffrey Scarre and Robin Coningham, Cambridge University Press, 2012, pp 195-221. http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/archaeology/archaeological-theory-and-methods/appropriating-past-philosophical-perspectives-practice-archaeology
• “Critical Distance: Stabilizing Evidential Claims in Archaeology”: in Evidence, Inference and Enquiry, edited by Philip Dawid, William Twining, and Mimi Vasilaki, Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 371–394. http://global.oup.com/academic/product/evidence-inference-and-enquiry-9780197264843?q=Evidence,%20inference%20and%20enquiry&lang=en&cc=us
• “What Knowers Know Well: Women, Work, and the Academy,” in Feminist Epistemology and Philosophy of Science, edited by H. E. Grasswick, Springer, 2011, pp. 157–179. http://www.springer.com/philosophy/book/978-1-4020-6834-8
• “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, 2010, pp. 301–322. http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/philosophy/philosophy-science/how-well-do-facts-travel-dissemination-reliable-knowledge
• “Archaeological Finds: Legacies of Appropriation, Modes of Response,” co-authored with George Nicholas, in The Ethics of Cultural Appropriation edited by James O. Young and Conrad G. Brunk, Wiley-Blackwell, 2009, pp. 11–54. http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1405161590.html
• "Agnotology in/of Archaeology,” in Agnotology: The Cultural Production of Ignorance, edited by Robert N. Proctor and Londa Schiebinger; Stanford University Press, Stanford University Press, 2008, pp. 183–205. http://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=11232
• “Socially Naturalized Norms of Epistemic Rationality: Aggregation and Deliberation,” The Southern Journal of Philosophy 44 Supplement (2006): 43-48. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/sjp.2006.44.issue-S1/issuetoc
• "The Promise and Perils of an Ethic of Stewardship," Beyond Ethics: Anthropological Moralities on the Boundaries of the Public and the Professional, edited by Lynn Meskell and Peter Pells, Berg Press, London, 2005, pp. 47–68. http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/embedding-ethics-9781845200473/
• “Why Standpoint Matters,” in Science and Other Cultures: Issues in Philosophies of Science and Technology, edited by Robert Figueroa and Sandra Harding, Routledge, New York, 2003, pp. 26–48. Reprinted in The Feminist Standpoint Theory Reader: Intellectual and Political Controversies, edited by Sandra Harding, Routledge, New York, 2004, pp. 339–351. https://www.routledge.com/products/9780415939928
• “Feminism in Philosophy of Science: Making Sense of Contingency and Constraint,” in Companion to Feminism in Philosophy, edited by Miranda Fricker and Jennifer Hornsby, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000, pp. 166–182. http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/philosophy/philosophy-general-interest/cambridge-companion-feminism-philosophy
• “Rethinking Unity as a Working Hypothesis for Philosophy of Science: How Archaeologists Exploit the Disunity of Science,” Perspectives on Science 7.3 (2000): 293-317. http://www.mitpressjournals.org/toc/posc/7/3
• “Good Science, Bad Science, or Science as Usual?: Feminist Critiques of Science,” in Women in Human Evolution, edited by Lori D. Hager, Routledge, New York, 1997, pp. 29–55. Reprinted in Contemporary Archaeology in Theory: The New Pragmatism, edited by Robert W. Preucel and Stephen A. Mrozowski, Wiley-Blackwell, 2010, pp. 225–243. https://www.routledge.com/products/9780415108348
• “The Engendering of Archaeology: Refiguring Feminist Science Studies,” Osiris 12 (1997): 80-99. (Special issue: Women, Gender, and Science: New Directions, edited by Sally Gregory Kohlstedt and Helen Longino.) Reprinted in The Science Studies Reader edited by Mario Biagioli, Routledge, New York, 1999, pp. 553–567. http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/O/bo3683405.html
• “Ethical Dilemmas in Archaeological Practice: Looting, Repatriation, Stewardship, and the (Trans)formation of Disciplinary Identity,” Perspectives on Science 4.2 (1996): 154-194. Reprinted in Ethics in American Archaeology, co-edited with Mark J. Lynott, Society for American Archaeology, Washington D.C., 2000, pp. 138–157.
• “The Constitution of Archaeological Evidence: Gender Politics and Science,” in The Disunity of Science: Boundaries, Contexts, and Power, edited by Peter Galison and David J. Stump, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1996, pp. 311–343. Reprinted in The Archaeology of Identities, edited by Timothy Insoll, Routledge, 2007, pp. 97–117. http://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=2121
• “Unification and Convergence in Archaeological Explanation: The Agricultural ‘Wave of Advance’ and the Origins of Indo-European Languages,” The Southern Journal of Philosophy 34, Supplement (1995): 1-30. (Special issue: Explanation in the Human Sciences, edited by David K. Henderson.) http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.2041-6962.1996.tb00809.x/abstract
• “Doing Philosophy as a Feminist: Longino on the Search for a Feminist Epistemology,” Philosophical Topics 23.2 (1995): 345-358. (Special issue: Feminist Perspectives on Language, Knowledge, and Reality, edited by Sally Haslanger.) http://www.jstor.org/stable/43154217?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
• “Women and Violence: Feminist Practice and Quantitative Method,” co-authored with Lorraine Greaves and the staff of the London Battered Women’s Advocacy Center, in Changing Methods: Feminists Transforming Practice, edited by Sandra Burt and Lorraine Code, Broadview Press, Peterborough ON, 1995, pp. 301–325. http://www.utppublishing.com/Changing-Methods-Feminists-Transforming-Practice.html
• “A Proliferation of New Archaeologies: Skepticism, Processualism, and Post-Processualism,” in Archaeological Theory: Who Sets the Agenda?, edited by Norman Yoffee and Andrew Sherratt, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1993, pp. 20–26. http://www.cambridge.org/US/academic/subjects/archaeology/archaeological-theory-and-methods/archaeological-theory-who-sets-agenda
• “'Invented Lands/Discovered Pasts': The Westward Expansion of Myth and History,” Historical Archaeology 27.4 (1993): 1-19. (Keynote Address, Society for Historical Archaeology.)
• “Facts and Fictions: Writing Archaeology in a Different Voice,” Canadian Journal of Archaeology 17 (1993): 5-25. Reprinted in Archaeological Theory: Progress or Posture?, edited by Iain M. MacKenzie, Avebury, Aldershot, 1994, pp. 3–18. http://canadianarchaeology.com/caa/biblio/author/373
• “Rethinking the Quincentennial: Consequences for Past and Present,” American Antiquity 57.4 (1992): 591-594. Reprinted in Peoples of the Past and Present, edited by Jean-Luc Chodkiewicz, Harcourt Brace, Toronto, 1995, pp. 138–140. http://www.jstor.org/stable/280821?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
• “The Interplay of Evidential Constraints and Political Interests: Recent Archaeological Work on Gender,” American Antiquity 57 (1992): 15-34. Reprinted in Readings in American Archaeological Theory: Selections from American Antiquity 1962-2000, edited by Garth Bawden, SAA Press, Washington D.C., 2003, pp. 121–142, Reader in Gender Archaeology, edited by Kelley Hays-Gilpin and David S. Whitely, Routledge, New York, 1998, pp. 57–84, Contemporary Archaeology in Theory, edited by Robert Preucel and Ian Hodder, Basil Blackwell, 1996, pp. 431–459. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2694833?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
• “On 'Heavily Decomposing Red Herrings': Scientific Method in Archaeology and the Ladening of Evidence with Theory,” in Metaarchaeology, edited by Lester Embree, Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Kluwer, Boston, 1992, pp. 269–288. Reprinted in Interpretive Archaeology: A Reader edited by Julian Thomas, Leicester University Press, London, 2000, pp. 145–157. http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-94-011-1826-2_12
• “Reasoning About Ourselves: Feminist Methodology in the Social Sciences,” in Women and Reason, edited by Elizabeth Harvey and Kathleen Okruhlik, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor MI, 1992, pp. 225–244. Reprinted in Readings in the Philosophy of Social Science edited by Michael Martin and Lee McIntyre, MIT Press, 1994, pp. 611–624. https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/readings-philosophy-social-science
• “Gender Theory and the Archaeological Record,” Engendering Archaeology: Women and Prehistory, edited by Margaret W. Conkey and Joan M. Gero, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1991, pp. 31–54. http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0631175016,subjectCd-GE10.html
• “Archaeological Cables and Tacking: The Implications of Practice for Bernstein's 'Options Beyond Objectivism and Relativism',” Philosophy of the Social Sciences 19 (1989): 1-18. http://pos.sagepub.com/content/19/1.toc
• “'Simple' Analogy and the Role of Relevance Assumptions: Implications of Archaeological Practice,” International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 2.2 (1988): 134-150. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02698598808573311
• “Reassessing the Profile and Needs of Battered Women,” co-authored with Lorraine Greaves and Nelson Heapy, Canadian Journal of Community Mental Health 7.2 (1988): 292-303.
• “Arguments for Scientific Realism: The Ascending Spiral,” American Philosophical Quarterly 23 (1986): 287-297. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20014151
• “The Reaction Against Analogy,” Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory 8 (1985): 63-111. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20170187?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
• “Between Philosophy and Archaeology,” American Antiquity 50 (1985): 478-490. http://www.jstor.org/stable/280505
• “Epistemological Issues Raised by a Structuralist Archaeology,” in Symbolic and Structural Archaeology, edited by Ian Hodder, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1982, pp. 39–46. http://ebooks.cambridge.org/chapter.jsf?bid=CBO9780511558252&cid=CBO9780511558252A011

Talks and interviews

• "What Knowers Know well: Why Feminism Matter To Archaeology" Katz Distinguished Lecture, Simpson Center for the Humanities, University of Washington,May 19, 2016 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucEM1t3Drek
• “Archaeology and Critical Feminism of Science: Interview by Kelly Koide, Mariana Toledo Ferreira, and Marisol Marini; published as [Archaeology and Critical Feminism of Science: Interview with Alison Wylie], Scientiae Studiea, Sao Paolo 12.3 (2014): 549-590; available in English http://philpapers.org/rec/WYLAAC
• The Archaeologist's Life, a series of interviews by Phyllis Messenger http://ias.umn.edu/2013/07/20/the-archaeologists-life/
• American Philosophical Association Presidential Address: "Feminist Philosophy of Science: Standpoint Matters" (Seattle, April 2012) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNNm6kwKvOY
• Rotman Institute Speaker: “A Plurality of Pluralisms: Collaborative Practice in Archaeology” (Western University, November 2012) http://www.rotman.uwo.ca/what-we-do/events/speaker-series-alison-wylie/
• Archaeology in the Making: Conversations Through a Discipline, edited by William Rathje, Michael Shanks, Timothy Webmoor, and Christopher Witmore, Routledge, in press (2012).
• “Transformations in Archaeology Theory and Method: Turning Point in the Early 1980s”: Personal Histories Retrospect, convened by Pamela Smith, Cambridge Personal Histories Project (Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, October 2007). Video podcast: http://www.arch.cam.ac.uk/personal-histories/retrospect.html
• Telling Stories, Constructing Narratives: Gender Equity and Archaeology: Uzma Z. Rizvi, Greenfield Intercultural Center (2007).
• “Philosophy from the Ground Up”: interview with Kathryn Denning, “Words of Wisdom,” Assemblage 5 (April 2000). http://www.assemblage.group.shef.ac.uk/5/wylie.html

References

External links

• Alison Wylie's homepage at the University of Washington (Seattle) -

http://faculty.washington.edu/aw26/

• Alison Wylie at Durham University (UK) -

http://www.dur.ac.uk/ias/fellows/1213/wylie/

https://www.dur.ac.uk/philosophy/staff/?id=11868