Another interesting paper that raises more questions for me than it answered (which likely was the point). Parts escaped me – how is feminist geography a non-spatial community? But what resonated with me the most was the advice from Goodchild that “straddle the fence” between human geography and GIS could be particularly academically lucrative. O’Sullivan interprets this statement to refer to social theory criticisms of GIS (critical GIS) and uses this anecdote to introduce the paper. I think this statement may have had broader interpretation or at least is relevant in a broader context. I think the future of GIS (and actually of many academic disciplines) may be strongest in the areas that straddle fences – with economics, with health, with resource management, with computer science, and sub-disciplines within these. And likewise, from what I understand, it seems like critical geographers do well at straddling these fences too.
[Side note: being named Pickles would be awesome (p. 784)]
-Kathryn
Tags: GEOG 506