Everywhere She Maps Through the Lens of Feminist Standpoint Epistemologies

Feminist standpoint theory has served as both a potent critique of mainstream methods of knowledge creation and a method of analyzing cases where feminist epistemologies are practically applied. Both of these aspects of standpoint theory can be seen in Everywhere She Maps (ESM), a global initiative helping women apply cutting-edge mapping tools; ESM evinces many important standpoint principles in its organization, operations, and impacts. This paper critically analyzes ESM by bringing together four strands of standpoint theory via the work of Donna Haraway, Mary Hawkesworth, Uma Narayan, and Joni Seager. Through this lens, it becomes clear that ESM presents an important case of feminist knowledge creation, empowering women to gather spatial data that challenges patriarchal structures and improves the lives of women and children, whether they are within refugee camps in Uganda or responding to natural disasters in Bangladesh. Across five key areas of impact (security improves, lives are saved, power is generated, prosperity rises, and innovation happens), ESM contributes to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals by improving gender equity, women’s participation in scientific inquiry, and spatial justice. ESM is thus a vital case linking feminist theory and real-world development. Standpoint theory provides the key to understanding how ESM is unlocking women’s unique local knowledge-gathering and mapping skills, creating a female-centric form of “situated knowledge” that empowers women—and carries the potential to reshape male-dominated science.