I understand Digital Humanities to be a field where individuals can better understand and analyse the humanities subjects (English, Art History etc.) through the lens of technology and data sets in order to revolutionise the academic field and institutions. It is a subject which does not necessarily aim to find the most ‘correct’ analysis but where discussion can be provoked through the different evaluations produced from data sets. When looking at data sets, it is important to acknowledge the legitimacy, accuracy, and whether the data is skewed as this should be taken into account when evaluating. It is a field that adapts to the evolving world and reimagines its intention and focus to take into account changing topical issues and to challenge the authorities that enforce inequality. With its growing popularity and necessity in the world, there are debates as to what is required to be a Digital Humanist (‘Big Tent’), for example, the debate around the necessity of coding comprehension.
I really like how considered your response is, articulating the character of Digital Humanities as an area that works in conjunction with, rather than superseding, the practices of the traditional humanities. Related to this, the point you raise on the care required when looking at data sets is really significant. It made me think of an article I read a couple of years ago that stuck with me revealing the racism built into predictive policing tools through the biased data sets the technology is tested on. There has been a lot of research on the topic in recent years, especially since 2020. Though it probably moves beyond the realm of the digital humanities (?) I think the common conclusion from a lot of the research is very applicable: that it is the social prejudices baked into the tools which is fundamentally at issue. Given the history of negotiating oppression within the traditional humanities, articulated in twentieth-century critical frameworks (post-colonial, feminist, marxist theory etc.), I wonder wether a whole different set of frameworks might be required to negotiate this in DH under the context of new technological medium or wether these existing frameworks are robust enough to tackle this field? (Natalia Cecire’s article from the week 1 additional reading approaches related ideas of theory in DH). It is a question that relates to your comment on DH as ‘a field that adapts to the evolving world’ and wonders what different kinds of adaption need to take place more ‘internally’ to the field and what is pushed forward by external factors.
Thanks, Izzy – these questions around the biases baked into datasets are so vital and I’m grateful to you for bringing them up. This might be the predictive policing study you mention: Julia Angwin’s piece for ProPublica (https://www.propublica.org/article/machine-bias-risk-assessments-in-criminal-sentencing), which got quite a lot of traction among DHers (though you’d probably put it more in the digital social science/digital journalism box if you wanted to categorise it – which is perhaps a less interesting thing to do than to talk about than the ways in which datasets can never be neutral, and the different tools that different disciplines bring to the identification of that bias and the analysis of its wider ramifications).
This is a really interesting response! I like that you shed light on the importance of taking into account the legitimacy and accuracy of data in our evaluation of it. I guess that is where our roles as ‘humanists’ comes in. In addition to the legitimacy and accuracy within these data sets, we should also take into account the omission or absence of certain data points within certain datasets. I am thinking in particular of the digital project ‘The real face of White Australia’ where the project has used face detection software to uncover government records of non-European Australians, the project seeks to showcase them not as “statistics, but as powerful evidence of the people affected by racism”. This project made me wonder some more about how the software works, and its efficacy. The face-detection software has been applied to a security system from a century ago, a system where a number of non-European citizens of Australia, natives or immigrants, might have never gotten their face photographed or on record in the first instance. (please feel free to correct this assumption and its relevance or if I might be misinterpreting how the software works)
Another interesting point you made is about how the digital humanities role is to “challenge the authorities that enforce inequality”. I really like your wording of this and how it brings up the inherent link between the digital humanities and politics. The field is inherently political, and as a continuously developing field itself, it has the potential to exert meaningful change. However, as you mentioned in your response, we must maintain our humanist perspectives in the handling and creation of this data, and remain cautious of the data’s accuracies. I guess that this is where the unique collaborative aspect of the digital humanities field comes into play, through the interplay of our differing perspectives, we can arrive at meaningful insights and interpretations of data sets themselves.
I found your explanation of the digital humanities accurate and easy to understand. I particularly appreciate where you note that DH has the ability to challenge inequality as it allows us to think beyond the binary we are often presented with in the digital world. I also liked where you note that the end goal of DH is not necessarily to find the most “correct” answer to an issue but to provoke discussion. This had me wondering about how these two ideas play into one another, particularly in a field such as literary criticism where much of the work we do requires a nuanced approach which takes into account the fact that the texts we read and interact with do not exist in a vacuum and are experiencing a constant process of revaluation under changing cultural attitudes. As another commenter noted, the link between DH and politics is inextricable, particularly when we consider that many online and tech spaces have historically been exclusionary to women, gender-diverse people, and people of colour. Is DH how we begin to break down those barriers? And what does that look like? I appreciate your presentation of these ideas and will continue to think on them as we move through the course.