Mapping Women’s Worlds: knowledge, power and the bounds of GIS

Feminist geography and geographic information systems (GIS) have been two of the most dynamic research areas in geography over the past decade. They have opened up new methodologies and epistemologies, challenged fundamental research categories, and charted new areas of geographical inquiry. For the most part, however, these two Ž elds have remained stubbornly apart—unconnected, uncommunicative, and directing geography in divergent directions. This article, like the others in this collection, explores the connections between feminist geography and GIS, identifying how each can enrich and inform the other. The discussion re ects my background as a feminist with expertise in GIS and quantitative methodologies and several years’ experience in using GIS in the health arena. To set the stage for the discussion, I begin with a brief ‘story’ (case study) describing the role of GIS in women’s activism concerning breast cancer in Long Island, New York. Subsequent sections review the key elements of feminist and GIS epistemologies and then discuss the challenges of integrating the re exive methodologies of feminism with the more static, layer-based approaches of GIS. Key issues of knowledge, context and power are examined.