The digital projects reflect our readings in the sense that they demonstrate the collaborative nature, commitment to inclusion and diversity and openness of what Digital Humanities scholars across the globe are still currently trying define and stay committed to as their values. I use the word trying when describing a DH’s scholar’s commitment to values because the field is evolving so greatly over the past ten years or so. We read in all three chapters there was as shift away from ‘Big Tent’ humanities and a push for the field to become more expanded and to include more ‘builders’ per se into this field of work. In my opinion, values need to be demonstrated for years in order to be fully acknowledged and understood, but what is positive is that projects are absolutely heading in a direction to aid more humanitarian efforts troubling our world.
Similar to technology and it’s rapid advancement and short path to obsolescence, it seems that digital humanists have a spoken requirement for their current projects to be reflective of real-time issues and also to work toward uncovering further determining the work of a digital humanists impact on culture while dually being tasked with archiving our past and present societies digitally. It seems like a lot of work, but with the earned and well regarded title of a digital humanist, you are more or less considered a gatekeeper, teacher and servant of knowledge in your field. Tackling current issues with great attention to minority groups is one example of the DH community’s commitment to document the largely absent past digital documentation of BIPOC and current and past events of oppression that is most reflected in the projects. Further, the open source nature of the DH community in it’s exchange of knowledge is not only defined in its values but is also directly reflected in the simple fact that these extensive sites require no academic credentialed login to view these projects so literally anyone with a link can view this. Further, the reviews in Digital Humanities is open for anyone to view and we can chronologically see the journal’s focus turning toward the digital documentation from people of diverse races and ethnicities in the latest release in January 2020.
In summation, it’s with great debate and collaboration but also quite incredible that the DH community is at large banding together for the long haul and gearing toward providing much light to lost data, current data and future humanitarian data, but also including more different kinds of DH workers into this type of research and development, in the effort to secure it’s place in academia and beyond with high integrity.
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