Remerciez-le!

Remerciez @Admin pour avoir partagé cet document gratuitement, de la manière la plus simple, en partageant sur les réseaux sociaux.

Women and GIS: Geospatial Technologies and Feminist Geographies Sara McLafferty

Women and GIS: Geospatial Technologies and Feminist Geographies Sara McLafferty Department of Geography / University of Illinois / Urbana / IL / USA Abstract This article explores the emerging intersections between feminism and GIS in relation to changes in GIS technologies and the impacts of such technologies on women’s lives. I argue that the past decade has seen an increasing ‘‘feminization’’ of GIS that involves innovations in GIS technologies and research practices, growing critical self-awareness among GIS researchers, and the development of feminist visualization as a research tool. At the same time, GIS and related geospatial technologies have become more embedded and pervasive in everyday life. The effects of new geospatial technologies on the gendered spaces of social and political life at a variety of spatial scales are discussed, with particular attention to gendered identities, geographical dimensions of everyday life, and women’s activism. Keywords: GIS, feminism, geospatial technologies Re ´sume ´ L’article porte sur les croisements entre le fe ´minisme et les syste `mes d’information ge ´ographique (SIG), les modifications apporte ´es aux technologies lie ´es aux SIG et les effets de ces technologies sur la vie des femmes. L’auteur affirme que, depuis une dizaine d’anne ´es, les SIG se sont « fe ´minise ´es ». Par exemple, il y a eu des innovations en matie `re de technologies et de pratiques de recherche, de me ˆme qu’une prise de conscience de soi accrue parmi les chercheurs, et la visualisation fe ´minine est devenue un outil de recherche. Au me ˆme moment, les SIG et les technologies ge ´ospatiales associe ´es se sont taille ´ une place dans la vie quotidienne. L’auteur parle aussi des effets des nouvelles technologies ge ´ospatiales sur les aspects de la vie sociale et politique divise ´s selon le sexe, qui sont de ´finis par une varie ´te ´ d’e ´chelles spatiales. Une attention particulie `re est accorde ´e aux identite ´s selon le sexe, aux dimensions ge ´ographiques de la vie quotidienne et a ` l’activisme des femmes. Mots cle ´s: SIG, fe ´minisme, technologies ge ´ospatiales Innovation often takes place when divergent schools of thought are connected – areas of endeavour that, on the surface, have little in common. A new lens shifts our worldview, bringing new areas into focus and opening up new avenues of dialogue. This is beginning to happen between GIS and feminist geography – two of the most dynamic research areas in geography during the past decade. Once separated by a wide epistemological chasm, the two fields are moving closer together. GIS researchers and feminist geographers are starting to talk and collaborate, and a small but growing group of researchers have their feet firmly planted in both fields. The result is an emerging ‘‘feminization’’ of GIS. This trend is tied to important innovations in GIS technologies and research practices, including the incorporation of new types of data in GIS, increases in critical self-awareness among GIS researchers, and the development of feminist visualization as a research tool. cartographica (volume 40, issue 4) 37 Exploring the connections between feminism and GIS also forces us to look ‘‘outside the box’’ to examine GIS as more than a research and visualization tool. As geospatial technologies become more pervasive and mobile, their impacts extend far beyond the research community, affecting the gendered social relations of everyday life. Today’s geospatial technologies comprise much more than geographic information systems. Information from surveillance cameras, vehicle navigation systems, cellular phones, tracking systems, and point- of-sale databases is geographic information in the sense that it is tied to locations on the earth’s surface. The computerized systems that link, analyse, and display such information are rudimentary GIS. Thus, for the purposes of this article, I define GIS quite broadly to encompass digital geographic information and the wide array of technologies for collecting, manipulating, and transmitting that information over increasingly large distances, as well as communications technologies that enable and enhance long-distance spatial interactions. A feminist perspective calls for critically examining the ‘‘situatedness’’ of GIS and emerging geospatial technolo- gies and how they are affecting the gendered spaces of social and political life at a variety of spatial scales. As the technologies become more embedded in daily life, they begin to influence women’s identities, their political activism, and their interactions and activities at home and work. Feminism heightens our awareness of these important connections. This article is organized in three sections. The first section is a brief discussion of feminist technology studies and feminist epistemology. The second examines the gendered construction of GIS, highlighting the evolution of the technology toward a more feminist model. I argue that these changes in the technology call for a shift of focus from feminist critiques of GIS to feminist analyses of how GIS technologies are influencing gendered social relations. The third section explores these issues by discussing how GIS and communications technologies are affecting feminist geographies. This section examines the impacts of technologies in three areas: gendered identities, geographical dimensions of everyday life, and women’s activism. I offer a selective summary of the literature that focuses on impacts on women and on the North American context. Effects on women are emphasized because that is the group I know best; however, the impacts on men and masculinities also deserve attention. Feminist Perspectives on Technology In the past three decades, gender and technology discourse has moved away from a ‘‘pro-technology’’ stance, in which technologies are viewed as tools for liberating women from toilsome daily tasks, and an opposing ‘‘anti-technology’’ stance in which technologies perpetuate and reproduce gendered social relations (Faulkner 2001). Recent literature presents a more nuanced view that focuses on the social construction of technologies and their impacts on gendered social relations (Light 1995; Wacjman 2000). Such a view sees gender and technology as mutually constituted. It acknowledges that technologies can have both positive and negative impacts at the same time and that impacts vary among diverse social groups. As Wendy Faulkner writes, ‘‘just as one cannot understand technology without reference to gender, one cannot understand gender without reference to technology’’ (2001, 90). These new perspectives on gender and technology are rooted in feminist epistemology. Feminists highlight the importance of positionality – the situatedness of knowledge and the lack of objectivity in science (Haraway 1991). There are many types of knowledge, each dependent on the position of the knower in relation to the subject of knowledge. People see information differently, pose different questions, and arrive at different conclusions. Reflexivity is another key concept in feminist epistemology. It refers to ‘‘the ability to act in the world and to critically reflect on our actions and in ways that may reconstitute how we act and feel and even reshape the very nature of self identity’’ (Ferguson 2003, 199). In feminist geography, it most often describes a critical self-awareness on the part of the researcher, a conscious, introspective effort to understand one’s position in a research endeavour and to interrogate the uneven land- scapes of power within which research is situated (Moss 1995; Rose 1997; Katz 1994; England 1994). It also involves efforts to give voice to the subjects of research through diverse forms of expression. It entails relations of support, trust, and empathy among research- ers, analysts, and subjects (Cloke and others 2000). Technologies like GIS affect positionality and reflexivity by altering the positions and power of people and groups. The technologies privilege and convey certain types of knowledge and communicate particular types of images and messages (Sui and Goodchild 2001). At the same time, the technologies are themselves positioned in webs of social and economic relations that affect how the technologies develop and how, where, and by whom they are used. The Gendered Construction of GIS Is GIS a masculinist technology? Many GIS researchers would view this as an absurd question. How can a technology have a gender, and what intrinsic character- istics of the technology make it ‘‘masculine’’ in character? Critics, however, have been quick to draw parallels between masculinity and GIS. Susan Roberts and Richard Schein state, ‘‘GIS is a gendered technology relying on scientific knowledge: it is a product of a Sara McLafferty 38 cartographica (volume 40, issue 4) scientific mind conceived as male and disembodied’’ (1995, 189). Critics also stress the close ties between positivism and GIS (Lake 1993) and the fact that GIS is heavily used in masculinist areas of application such as the military (Smith 1992). There are many reasons why some authors have characterized GIS as masculinist. GIS is a ‘‘detached observer,’’ viewing its subjects from afar (Roberts and Schein 1995). GIS information is often remotely sensed, deriving from satellites, cameras, or government surveys. The uncritical reliance on secondary data makes many GIS applications appear masculinist. Along with its detached viewpoint, the technology is not highly reflexive. Until recently, most GIS applications severed the personal and social connections between GIS researchers and the subjects of GIS. The traditional data model used in GIS reinforces the distance between researchers and subjects. People are represented as spatial objects – points on a uploads/Science et Technologie/ women-and-gis.pdf