Description
This presentation explores how data feminist principles can reshape data visualization practices in participatory urban planning. Building on critiques from Cultural Geography, Critical Cartography, and feminist GIS, it reflects on the Urban Belonging Project—a participatory GIS initiative involving 32 marginalized participants (including lgbt+, deaf, disabled, ethnic minorities, internationals, and unhoused individuals) in mapping experiences of belonging in Copenhagen. Through speculative visualization experiments, the project reimagines how intersectionality, subjectivity, and power can be made visible in urban data through mapmaking. It offers three provocations: crafting techniques to visualize intersectionality; challenging official spatial boundaries to reflect lived experience; and using participatory mapping to reveal bias among urban planners. The project demonstrates how data visualization can contest dominant narratives and act as a critical tool for inclusion and reflection. It contributes a practical blueprint for applying data feminism in visualization design, while addressing the tensions and dilemmas that emerge in doing so.
