Jen McCormack

Ph.D. Student, Geography & Regional Development

Minor: American Indian Studies

M.A., 2004, Middle Eastern Studies, University of Texas-Austin
B.A., 2000, Geography, University of Arizona

Phone: (512) 970.7805
FAX: (520) 621-2889
E-mail: jenmack@email.arizona.edu

Harvill Building, Box #2
Tucson, AZ 85721-0076
USA

Research

"To have been dangerous for a thousandth of a second...what more can one want?" In Prisoner of Love, Jean Genet recounts a conversation he had with an older Palestinian woman who posed this rhetorical question.

In my research thus far, I have been lucky enough to work with people who incorporate this challenge in all levels of their realities---be it the first generation women university students who use GIS in their impoverished communities, or the imprisoned poet who teaches botany in the cellblock. The "danger" they represent is one to apathy and submission. And what they offer are creative and constructive responses to their less than utopian spaces.

Using "rebel-mapping," I seek to consider how space, often ordered by those with superior technological tools, will be situated by people who are primarily affected/live/work by/in a specific space, but often do not have access to the same power kit. By incorporating such tools into community dialogues, my hope is that we can pose "danger" to institutional injustices.