Doctoral Dissertation Research: Understanding the Epistemic Cultures of Transnational Field Sciences through an Ethnography of Andean Archaeology

University Of Chicago, Chicago IL

Investigators

Abstract

This doctoral research explores international collaborations between field scientists from North and South America - specifically Chilean, Bolivian, US and Canadian archaeologists who work in Chile and Bolivia. The research methodology involves ethnographic study of academic practices in labs, universities and excavations. It aims to understand how scientific knowledge is generated and used at international, nation and local levels, in the context of postcolonial relations between North and South America, and a growing neo-indigenous movement. Through an ethnography of collaborations between local Aymara communities and international archaeologists, this project will determine how field sciences challenge our models of how scientific knowledge is produced and circulated. When the 'laboratory' is an unbounded space in the landscape, and the 'scientists' include indigenous workers and untrained students, how are scientific facts and data delineated as authoritative, independent, universal knowledge? Furthermore, how are field sciences sustained in the rapidly changing context of a postcolonial world, where both national governments and local communities actively seek a stake in the production and products of their research? This project looks beyond the traditional remit of science studies, to ascertain whether the models of scientific knowledge production developed in the natural sciences and in laboratories can be extended to field sciences. It asks whether, precisely because of the conditions of its production, field sciences are more open to challenges to their authority. As international scientific research shifts towards greater inclusion of indigenous peoples, questions of fundamental importance are raised about the implications not only for the type of knowledge produced and how it is used, but also for the rights of those that produce it. In addressing these questions, this dissertation project will have an impact both on our knowledge of scientific practice, and on debates within anthropology surrounding the role of scientists, including anthropologists, on the international stage.