Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T01:59:23.130Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

What is Archaeology's “Mitigated Objectivism” Mitigated by? Comments on Wylie

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Michael Fotiadis
Michael Fotiadis*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In her recent work, Alison Wylie has sometimes claimed an important role for present politics in the constitution of archaeological facts, yet she has not fully documented such claims. Using the same materials as Wylie, namely the research on gender presented at the conference “Women and Production in Prehistory,” held in South Carolina in 1988, I attempt to provide such documentation, arguing that its absence may undermine Wylie's (indeed, archaeology's) “mitigated objectivism” as well as the facts emerging about prehistoric gender. I dispute neither the scientific integrity of those facts nor the rigor of Wylie's analysis. Like many before me, I puzzle about the relationship between truth and politics, and I regard the disjunction of the two notions, so obdurate in archaeology, as counterproductive, the source of contradictions and disabling ambivalences. I make at the end two suggestions about overcoming the notional disjunction of truth and politics, one adopted from Brumfiel and from Conkey (archaeological facts as allegories), the other from Foucault (archaeological evidence as a network of sites of power).

Resumen

Resumen

En su trabajo reciente, Alison Wylie ha afirmado algunas veces la importancia del papel que la política presente juega en la constitución de los hechos arqueológicos, pero ella no ha documentado suficientemente tal afirmación. Utilizando los mismos materiales que ella ha utilizado, esto es, la investigación sobre género presentados en 1988 en la conferencia “La Mujer y la Producción en la Prehistoria” en Carolina del Sur, yo intento proveer esta documentación, y arguyo que su ausencia perjudica el “objetivismo mitigado” de Wylie (y de hecho de la arqueología) así como los hechos que emergen acerca del género prehistórico. Yo no disputo la integridad científica de esos hechos o el rigor del análisis de Wylie. Así como lo han hecho muchos antes que yo, simplemente me pregunto cuál es la relación entre verdad y política, y considero que la disyunción entre estas dos nociones, tan recalcitrantes en la arqueología, es contraproducente y constituye una fuente de contradicciones y ambivalencias. Yo hago dos sugerencias sobre cómo sobreponerse a la disyunción entre verdad y política, la primera adoptada de Brumftel y Conkey (los hechos arqueológicos como alegorías), y la segunda de Foucault (la evidencia arqueológica como una red de puestos de poder).

Type
Comments
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 59 , Issue 3 , July 1994 , pp. 545 - 555
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1994

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References Cited

Brumfiel, E. M. 1987 Comments [on Earle and Preucel 1987], Current Anthropology 28 : 513–514.Google Scholar
Brumfiel, E. M. 1991 Weaving and Cooking : Women's Production in Aztec Mexico. In Engendering Archaeology : Women and Prehistory, edited by Gero, J. M. and Conkey, M. W., pp. 224–251. Basil Blackwell, Oxford.Google Scholar
Claassen, C. P. 1991 Gender, Shellfishing, and the Shell Mound Archaic. In Engendering Archaeology : Women and Prehistory, edited by Gero, J. M. and Conkey, M. W., pp. 276–300. Basil Blackwell, Oxford.Google Scholar
Clifford, J. 1986 On Ethnographic Allegory. In Writing Culture : The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, edited by Clifford, J. and Marcus, G. E., pp. 98–121. University of California Press, Berkeley.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Conkey, M. W. 1991 Contexts of Action, Contexts of Power : Material Culture and Gender in the Magdalenian. In Engendering Archaeology : Women and Prehistory, edited by Gero, J. M. and Conkey, M. W., pp. 57–92. Basil Blackwell, Oxford.Google Scholar
Conkey, M. W., and Gero, J. M. 1991 Tensions, Pluralities, and Engendering Archaeology : An Introduction to Women and Prehistory. In Engendering Archaeology. Women and Prehistory, edited by Gero, J. M. and Conkey, M. W., pp. 3–30. Basil Blackwell, Oxford.Google Scholar
Conkey, M. W., with Williams, S. H. 1991 Original Narratives. The Political Economy of Gender in Archaeology. In Gender at the Crossroads of Knowledge : Feminist Anthropology in the Postmodern Era, edited by Leonardo, M. Di, pp. 102–139. University of California Press, Berkeley.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Earle, T., and Preucel, R. 1987 Processual Archaeology and the Radical Critique. Current Anthropology 28 : 501–538.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Engelstad, E. 1991 Images of Power and Contradiction : Feminist Theory and Post-processual Archaeology. Antiquity 65 : 502–514.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fabian, J. 1983 Time and the Other : How Anthropology Makes Its Object. Columbia University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Fotiadis, M. 1992 Units of Data as Deployment of Disciplinary Codes. In Representations in Archaeology, edited by Gardin, J-C. and Peebles, C., pp. 132–148. Indiana University Press, Bloomington.Google Scholar
Foucault, M. 1980a Power/Knowledge. Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-1977. Pantheon Books, New York.Google Scholar
Foucault, M. 1980b The History of Sexuality : Volume 1, an Introduction. Vintage Books, New York.Google Scholar
Foucault, M. 1991 Questions of Method. In The Foucault Effect : Studies in Governmentality, edited by Burchell, G., Gordon, C, and Miller, P., pp. 73–86. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Gailey, W. C, and Patterson, T. C. 1987 Power Relations and State Formation. In Power Relations and State Formation, edited by Gailey, W. C. and Patterson, T. C., pp. 1–26. American Anthropological Association, Washington, D. C. Google Scholar
Gero, J. M., and Conkey, M. W. (editors) 1991 Engendering Archaeology : Women and Prehistory. Basil Blackwell, Oxford.Google Scholar
Haraway, D. J. 1988 Remodelling the Human Way of Life. Sherwood Washburn and the New Physical Anthropology. In Bones, Bodies, and Behavior : Essays on Biological Anthropology, edited by Stocking, G. W. Jr., pp. 206–259. History of Anthropology No. 5. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison.Google Scholar
Harding, S. G. 1986 The Science Question in Feminism. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, N. Y.Google Scholar
Harding, S. G. 1987 Ascetic Intellectual Opportunities : Reply to Alison Wylie. Canadian Journal of Philosophy supplementary volume 13 : 75–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harding, S. G. 1991 Whose Science? Whose Knowledge? Thinking from Women's Lives. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, N. Y.Google Scholar
Hastorf, C. A. 1991 Gender, Space, and Food in Prehistory. In Engendering Archaeology : Women and Prehistory, edited by Gero, J. M. and Conkey, M. W., pp. 132–159. Basil Blackwell, Oxford.Google Scholar
Herzfeld, M. 1987 Anthropology Through the Looking Glass. Critical Ethnography in the Margins of Europe. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Hodder, I. 1989 Writing Archaeology : Site Reports in Context. Antiquity 63 : 268–274.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hodder, I. 1990 The Domestication of Europe : Structure and Contingency in Neolithic Societies. Basil Blackwell, Oxford.Google Scholar
Shanks, M., and Tilley, C. 1987 Social Theory and Archaeology. Polity Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Tilley, C. 1990 Michel Foucault : Towards an Archaeology of Archaeology. In Reading Material Culture, edited by Tilley, C., pp. 281–347. Basil Blackwell, Oxford.Google Scholar
Tringham, R. 1991 Households with Faces : The Challenge of Gender in Prehistoric Architectural Remains. In Engendering Archaeology : Women and Prehistory, edited by Gero, J. M. and Conkey, M. W., pp. 93–131. Basil Blackwell, Oxford.Google Scholar
Watson, P. J., and Kennedy, M. C. 1991 The Development of Horticulture in the Eastern Woodlands of North America : Women's Role. In Engendering Archaeology : Women and Prehistory, edited by Gero, J. M. and Conkey, M. W., pp. 255–275. Basil Blackwell, Oxford.Google Scholar
Wright, G. A. 1990 Being There and the Archaeologist as Author. Anthropos 85 : 39–44.Google Scholar
Wright, R. P. 1991 Women's Labor and Pottery Production in Prehistory. In Engendering Archaeology. Women and Prehistory, edited by Gero, J. M. and Conkey, M. W., pp. 194–223. Oxford, Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Wylie, A. 1987 The Philosophy of Ambivalence : Sandra Harding on The Science Question in Feminism. Canadian Journal of Philosophy supplementary volume 13 : 59–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wylie, A. 1989 Matters of Fact and Matters of Interest. In Archaeological Approaches to Cultural Identity, edited by Shennan, S., pp. 94–109. One World Archaeology No. 10. Unwin Hyman, London.Google Scholar
Wylie, A. 1990 Feminist Critiques and Archaeological Challenges. In The Archaeology of Gender, edited by Walde, D. and Willows, N., pp. 17–23. University of Calgary Archaeological Association, Calgary, Alberta.Google Scholar
Wylie, A. 1991 Gender Theory and the Archaeological Record : Why Is There No Archaeology of Gender? In Engendering Archaeology : Women and Prehistory, edited by Gero, J. M. and Conkey, M. W., pp. 31–54. Basil Blackwell, Oxford.Google Scholar
Wylie, A. 1992a The Interplay of Evidential Constraints and Political Interests : Recent Archaeological Research on Gender. American Antiquity 57 : 15–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wylie, A. 1992b On “Heavily Decomposing Red Herrings“ : Scientific Method in Archaeology and the Ladening of Evidence with Theory. In Metaarchaeology : Reflections by Archaeologists and Philosophers, edited by Embree, L., pp. 269–288. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science Vol. 147. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wylie, A. 1992c Feminist Theories of Social Power : Some Implications for a Processual Archaeology. Norwegian Archaeological Review 25 : 51–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wylie, A. 1994 The Constitution of Archaeological Evidence : Gender Politics and Science. In The Disunity of Science : Boundaries, Contexts, and Power, edited by Galison, P. and Stump, P.. Stanford University Press, Stanford, California, in press.Google Scholar
Yoffee, N., and Sherratt, A. 1993 Introduction : The Sources of Archaeological Theory. In Archaeological Theory : Who Sets the Agenda?, edited by Yoffee, N. and Sherratt, A., pp. 1–9. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. CrossRefGoogle Scholar