Two decades on: Critical GIScience since 1993

Two meetings held in the early 1990s helped to bring about a rapprochement between the critics and proponents of GIS, and to focus research activities in what became known as critical GIScience. The motivations and conclusions of both meetings are reviewed. Since then development in GIS has been rapid, and has branched out in many new directions that call for their own assessment and critique. Six such directions are reviewed. The paper ends with a call for a newly energized critical GIScience that can address many of the issues raised in the past two decades, while continuing to work on issues that were already known in the early 1990s.