Affecting Geospatial Technologies: Toward a Feminist Politics of Emotion*

*Earlier versions of this article were presented in the University of Minnesota Department of Geography's speaker series “Feminism and Social Theory in Geography,” 15 October 2004, and at the Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers, Denver, 5–9 April 2005. I thank the audiences of these presentations, and Karen Dias, Jennifer Blecha, and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.

Abstract

Building on earlier contributions to feminist understanding of geospatial technologies (GT), I seek to further develop feminist perspectives on GT along new directions. I argue that an attention to the importance of affect (feelings and emotions) and the performative nature of GT practices offers a distinctive critical edge to feminist work on GT. I emphasize the need for GT practitioners to contest the dominant meanings and uses of GT, and to participate in struggles against the oppressive or violent effects of these technologies. I argue that only when emotions, feelings, values, and ethics become an integral part of our geospatial practices can we hope that the use of GT will lead to a less violent and more just world.

Key Words:

• affect
• emotion
• feminist politics
• geospatial technologies
• GIS

Notes

¹The feminist notion of performativity (based on Judith Butler's 1990 and 1993 works) concerns the processes through which gender identity and social practices are mutually constituted. As my focus here is on geospatial technologies (not processes of identity formation), this article instead invokes the notion of “performativity” through its more common understanding as “performance” and “practice.” Following Liz Bondi (2005), I argue that the way these notions are used in the article does not depend on any particular theorization of the relationship between emotions and performativity.

²The term affect can mean many different things and is often “associated with words such as emotion and feeling” (Thrift 2004, 59). Its meanings seem to have derived from different traditions, which include (Thrift 2004) Freudian psychoanalysis (instincts, drives, and emotional impulse), Spinoza's metaphysics (changes in the experiential states of the body through actions and encounters), and the phenomenological tradition (expressive feeling and behavior manifested through bodily states). Although the term affect cannot be reduced to personal feeling nor be detached from the body's capacity to act, it is used loosely in this article to encompass both emotion and feeling. For helpful critiques of recent notions of affect, see the discussions in Deborah Thien (2004) and Divya Tolia-Kelly (2006).

³Digital versions of these two figures are available at http://geog-www.sbs.ohio-state.edu/faculty/mkwan/AffectGT.html.

*Earlier versions of this article were presented in the University of Minnesota Department of Geography's speaker series “Feminism and Social Theory in Geography,” 15 October 2004, and at the Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers, Denver, 5–9 April 2005. I thank the audiences of these presentations, and Karen Dias, Jennifer Blecha, and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mei-Po Kwan

A Distinguished Professor