We’re a small and passionate working group that came together during the pandemic summer of 2020 to work on EDI issues in philosophy. We’re based in the Philosophy Department, the Archeology Department, and the School of Information at the University of British Columbia.
Alison Wylie
She/Her
Professor of Philosophy and Canada Research Chair
I’m a feminist philosopher of the social and historical sciences. What intrigues me are questions about how inquiry succeeds when evidence is sparse and uncertain. My work is case-based; I focus on evidential reasoning in archaeology, and on standpoint theory as a framework for making sense of how our understanding of the world – especially the social world – can be enhanced by a diversity of situated experience, knowledge, and interests. Recently I’ve been working with a cluster of archaeologists who collaborate with regional Indigenous communities, and with the NSF Center for Braiding Indigenous Knowledges and Science.
I have a longstanding commitment to EDI research and activism within and beyond the academy: ‘Post-Civil Rights Era’ Gender Discrimination; “What Knowers Know Well: Women, Work and the Academy”; “Women in Philosophy: The Costs of Exclusion.”
Matthew Smithdeal
They/Them
I recently completed a PhD in Philosophy at UBC. I put forward a novel framework for understanding the psychological mechanisms that guide how we categorize people in our environment. I also use this framework to propose theatre-based interventions that mitigate our tendency to stereotype and dehumanize members of marginalized social categories.
In addition to this project, I helped create Rock the Boat, an open-access multimedia resource designed to provoke dialogue about graduate supervision relationships within universities, and their impact on student and faculty wellbeing. RTB uses Research-based Theatre to generate systemic change in ways that supervisory relationships are approached and managed.
Jasper Heaton
They/She
I recently completed a Ph.D. in Philosophy at the University of British Columbia, working in transfeminist and feminist philosophy.
My research focuses on metaphysical questions concerning the relationship between individuals and social categories. I am especially interested in the supposed-dichotomy between individual-level and systems-level explanations, and in how knowledge is generated from marginalized perspectives. My doctoral research develops an ameliorative analysis of gender as gender identity, and shows that an account of gender identity is vital for transfeminist politics.
My work is rooted in first-personal experiences, and seeks to elucidate why people’s subjectivity is a site of social resistance to conditions of marginalization and exclusion.
Kristin Conrad Kilgallen
They/She
Kristin Conrad Kilgallen holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in philosophy from UBC and is now completing a Master of Library and Information Studies at the UBC iSchool. She works as a teaching assistant at the UBC Sauder School of Business and as a student librarian with the Small Business Accelerator. Her interests include trauma-informed education, Indigenous pedagogies, critical information literacy, community knowledge-building, and maintaining voice and agency in the age of AI.
Cam Gilbert
He/Him
I’m a PhD student at the University of British Columbia with interests in social and political philosophy, feminist philosophy, and social epistemology. Broadly speaking, my research focuses on the structurally maintained ignorance of settlers in settler colonial societies and forms of epistemic oppression towards Indigenous peoples and communities.
In addition to my academic interests, I currently volunteer as a grant writer for the Center for Integration of African Immigrants in Vancouver and as a union representative for the UBC philosophy graduate students. I’m presently involved in an initiative to unionize all student workers (research assistances, academic assistants, etc.) at UBC. I also have long-term interests in organizing a community philosophy initiative at UBC that seeks to bring philosophical dialogue (in a very broad sense) to the broader Vancouver community.
Alice Everly
Database advice
She/Her
I have a PhD in Philosophy from McGill University and an MA in Archival Studies from UBC.
My philosophical work is animated by a fascination with interactions between the descriptive and the evaluative, as these interactions arise in both biological and social life. My dissertation reinterprets 20th-century continental insights into vitality and normativity, and applies them at the junction of contemporary social, political, and statistical practices in order to develop a new conceptual framework for contemporary social justice projects – what I call ‘generative normativity.’
My interests in archival science also lie in the interactions between the descriptive and the evaluative: what are the social and ethical effects of our organizational, descriptive, and recordkeeping practices, and how can these practices contribute to social justice?
Eric Simons
Illustration credit
(He/Him)
I am a PhD candidate in archaeology at the University of British Columbia. My field practice and my scholarship have for the past few years been focused on the former grounds of an Indian Residential School—a community-led effort to locate missing children. Here and in my previous research, I’m interested in the relationships between archaeological and Indigenous ways of working and knowing, and particularly how these relate to social justice.
I also hold a BFA in visual art and have practiced as an illustrator for the past twenty years. I’m grateful to The Philosophy Exception team for the opportunity to pair my academic and illustrative interests in such a compelling project!