Call for Participation

More than Critical, More than GIS

A Pre-AAG Workshop

Please join us for a low-key workshop with community partners in New Orleans focusing on new and continuing topics and debates around mapping and GIS that involve political, cultural, and economic processes and attempts to create better alternatives in NOLA and beyond!

In recent years, Critical GIS and similar efforts have seen a resurgence in practice and the debate, including the nature of the term Critical GIS itself. Such evaluations and practices involving geographic data, analysis, and mapping run the gamut from housing and gentrification to indigenous mapping to coastlines and climate change to exposés of gerrymandering to anti-capitalist organizing to new narratives and histories of sexual orientation and more. This workshop seeks to build on these exciting developments to bring together new and established voices engaged in the thought and practice of mappings and GIS work that involves political, cultural, and economic processes. We eschew totemic uses of the terms ‘critical’ and ‘GIS’ that can all-to-often be used to demarcate who and what does and doesn’t belong; rather, we wish to encourage anyone interested to join us to better explore how spatial data, technologies, visualization, and analysis may help us create a better world.

Thus, this workshop is about ‘more than gis’ and ‘more than critical’ approaches. Building on the energies of the 2014 Critical GIS meeting at Friday Harbor and the 2017 meeting at McGill University, we seek to gather and learn about diverse voices and approaches in New Orleans. An important aim of this workshop is to engage with and learn from the work that local organizations and individuals are doing in New Orleans, and how that can help reimagine the possibilities for what it means to ‘do critical GIS’.

Location: New Orleans, near where the AAG conference will be the next day. Workshop date: April 9th (Monday before the AAG). 10 am - 4 pm

Tentative Format:

Morning: Introductions, lightning-fast presentations of participants’ work

Afternoon: Engagement with community partners, potentially including a tour of geographical organizing in New Orleans, talks by those pursuing social and environmental justice in the region, or a hands-on data workshop on a topic important to New Orleans residents.

Late afternoon: Drinks and dinner

How to join us:

While the workshop is open to all interested parties, we ask that you submit a 100 word expression of interest that describes either A. a relevant project you would like to share with the group or B. your thoughts on how you would like to see ‘Critical GIS’ expanded as a field of research. Please email craig.dalton@hofstra.edu by March 1, 2017.

Organizers: (alphabetical)

Luis Alvarez Leon, Clark University

Craig Dalton, Hofstra University

Rina Ghose, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee

Jack Gieseking, Trinity College

Liz Mason-Deese, George Mason University

Eric Nost, University of Wisconsin - Madison

Jim Thatcher, University of Washington Tacoma

Clancy Wilmott, University of Manchester

Matthew Wilson, University of Kentucky