Operating Anew: Queering GIS with Good Enough Software

In the last decade, conversations around queering of GIScience emerged. Drawing on literature from feminist and queer critical GIS with special attention to the under-examined political economy of GIS, I suggest that the critical project of queering all of GIS, both GIScience and GISystems, requires not just recognition of the labor and lives of queers and research in geographies of sexualities. Based upon a queer feminist political economic critique and evidenced in my teaching critical GIS at two elite liberal arts colleges, I argue that “status quo” between ESRI and geography as a field must be interrupted. Extending a critical GIS focus beyond data structures and data ethics, I argue that geographic researchers and instructors have a responsibility in queering our choice and production of software, algorithms, and code alike. I call this production and choice of democratic, accessible, and useful software by, for, and about the needs of its users good enough software. Instead, I argue that “status quo” between ESRI and geography as a field must be interrupted.