The Implications of Including Women's Daily Lives in a Feminist GIScience

Abstract

In this paper, we argue that a feminist geographical analysis that examines women as active agents in their daily lives, pays attention to the multiplicity of women's experiences in relational space, and values knowledge for transformative purposes, provides insights as to how GIScience might develop in the near future. We draw upon our research with two different community organizations in North Philadelphia to show how a feminist geographical analysis can shape the conceptualization of a community GIS. We argue that collaborative work with community organizations based on "a view from below" necessitates alternative institutional arrangements while providing rich data to better understand the intersection of daily life and information and communication technologies (ICT) as experienced, in the particular case of our work, by poor women. Our research illustrates that understanding ICT frameworks from the perspective of women and in the context of their daily lives has important implications for GIScience.