JBS Haldane Lecture 2022 - Professor Alison Wylie : Critical Genealogies, 13 May 2022

As pioneers of Science and Technology Studies at UCL since 1921, the UCL Department of Science and Technology is delighted to welcome Professor Alison Wylie (University of British Columbia) as the speaker for this year’s JBS Haldane Lecture.

Insistent demands to decolonize archaeology in settler-colonial contexts have mobilised a growing commitment to work in collaborative partnership with Indigenous communities. A succession of critiques of such practice throw into sharp relief a tangle of jointly epistemic and political/ethical questions about the status of archaeology as a discipline, who it serves, whose protocols should govern its practice, and what counts as credible evidence and warranted claims.

Professor Wylie will explore the question of what’s required to meet the challenge posed by Tuck and Yang – that “decolonisation is not a metaphor” – focusing on approaches to archaeological inquiry that conceive of it as a practice of “bearing witness.”

Professor Wylie will also ask what role philosophers and historians of science can play in decolonising the epistemic underpinnings of the sciences we study and, indeed, their own practice.

Please note this event will also be held online, registration via Here

About the STS JBS Haldane Memorial Lectures

The STS JBS Haldane Memorial Lectures were launched in 2014 in honour of UCL Professor JBS Haldane, a polymath not only in the life sciences but also in science communication and science policy. 

These talks are free to attend and open to the academic community. Please visit the dedicated JBS Haldane Memorial Lectures page on our website for details and recordings of previous talks.