For Anna: After critical GIS, what next?

Abstract

In honour of our lost colleague Anna K. Dvorak, we draw from elements of her last unfinished manuscript to explore new directions in critical GIS education and practice. Anna was a recent PhD in Geography hired into a critical GIS tenure-track position. The ways in which she wove GIS practice through her research interests, teaching sensibilities, and community advocacy experiences defied easy categorization; we argue she represents a new generation of geography graduate student who is redefining where and how critical GIS education occurs. Anna's social and environmental justice work with the Pacoima Beautiful non-profit organization in southern California formed the basis for an on-going research initiative that gave her the opportunity to experiment with GIS as advocacy tool in the hands of local high school students. At the time of her death she had completed an initial draft of a manuscript situating this work in broader community activism issues. We remember Anna by presenting large sections of her work unaltered, interwoven with our commentary on the significance of her approach to critical GIS in a time of shifting academic and corporate commercial relationships to the technology.