Amalia S. Levi (HeritEdge Connection)
02.08.2022 16:15—17:45
English
Mindful DH: The Generative Power of Archival Silences
Humanities scholars are acutely aware of ‘archival silences’ in the historical record and try to overcome and fill them in by using various methods. As archives and libraries increasingly digitize collections and make them available online, the ease of access belies gaps in collections. Using inherently partial and selective digitized collections for developing DH projects without interrogating omissions, power structures, and distortions underlying them results in scholarship that reinscribes and reifies archival silences into the digital realm. For those of us who work with colonial collections, this can result in DH projects that perpetuate ‘sins’ of analogue collections. How can we develop digital humanities projects that focus not only on what is there, but mainly on finding what is not there, and use ‘silences’ as a generative way for providing a more nuanced and multivocal view of the past?
Español
Humanidades Digitales conscientes: el poder generativo de los silencios de archivo
Investigadores en humanidades son muy conscientes de los „silencios de archivo“ en el registro histórico, y tratan de superarlos y llenarlos usando varios métodos. A medida que los archivos y las bibliotecas digitalizan las colecciones y las ponen a disposición en línea, la facilidad de acceso esconde las lagunas en las colecciones. El uso de colecciones digitalizadas intrínsecamente parciales y selectivas para desarrollar proyectos de Humanidades Digitales sin cuestionar las omisiones, las estructuras de poder y las distorsiones subyacentes da como resultado una erudición que reinscribe y cosifica los silencios de los archivos en el ámbito digital. Para los que trabajamos con colecciones coloniales, esto puede resultar en proyectos de Humanidades Digitales que perpetúan los “pecados” de las colecciones análogas.
¿Cómo podemos desarrollar proyectos de Humanidades Digitales que se enfoquen no solo en lo que está ahí, sino principalmente en encontrar lo que no está ahí, y utilizar los “silencios” como una forma generativa de brindar una visión más matizada y multivocal del pasado?
Stefania Gallini (Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Columbia)
03.08.2022 16:15—17:45
English
The digital legacy of the Truth Commission in Colombia
After almost 4 years – partially during the COVID19 pandemia – on June 28, 2022, the Truth Commission (CEV) delivered in Bogotá, Colombia, its final report on the internal armed conflict that dominated the last 6 decades of the history of this country, and which had a turning point in the signing of the 2016 peace accords between the Colombian government and the FARC-EP guerrillas. The factual results exceed the dimensions of violence already acknowledge and put Colombia in sad first ranks of the global championship of human rights violations.
That of the CEV is not an exceptional experience in contemporary history: Ireland, Rwanda, South Africa, Guatemala, Argentina, Chile, and other countries in the world entrusted official commissions of various names with the task of inquiring about the responsibilities, reasons, context, impacts of internal armed conflicts, dictatorships, and situations of serious human rights violations with the purpose of clarifying what happened and helping to identify conditions and opportunities for its non-repetition.
What is instead exceptional is that a truth commission has been conceived, worked and delivers its results in the midst of the digital age. For the first time in the history of these types of experiences, the official final delivery of the CEV is not just a textual report, but a complex digital platform, which includes a universe of data and transmedia information. For the first time in the experiences of truth commissions, the methodology, languages, work teams, internal and external communication have been dominated by digital tools and formats. For the first time in this field, CEV officials were concerned from the beginning with documenting methods, relying on open codes, systematizing data and experiences, experimenting with transmedia formats, worrying about the digital divide in the country, and understanding the orality of the victims of the internal armed conflict as an extraordinary wealth, and not a documentary obstacle. For the first time in the history of truth commissions, one of the biggest management problems to face is which institution will be able to receive the enormous and legally complex digital archive, guaranteeing open access and not succumbing to technological obsolescence. In other words, perhaps the greatest result of the CEV is its digital legacy.
The Colombian case, therefore, becomes a fruitful experience to think about important topics for global Digital Humanities and their relationship with social and political transformations. Topics range from the role of civil society in the formation, custody, and use of digital human rights archives, to the challenges of digital editions contributing to the knowledge democratization, to the formation of digital skills capable, for example, of finding creative paths to overcome the digital divide. In fulfilling its mission between 2018 and 2022, the CEV functioned as an extraordinary laboratory of transformative Digital Humanities, an urgent field for the intellectual agenda and international academic training. Its digital legacy represents a wealth not only for Colombia, but for the international community.
Español
El legado digital de la Comisión de la Verdad en Colombia
Luego de casi 4 años de trabajo – transcurridos además en medio de la pandemia por COVID19 – el 28 de junio 2022 la Comisión de la Verdad (CEV) entregó en Bogotá, Colombia, su informe final acerca del conflicto armado interno que dominó las últimas 6 décadas de la historia de este país, y que tuvo un punto de quiebre en la firma de los acuerdos de paz de 2016 entre el gobierno colombiano y la guerrilla de las FARC-EP. Los resultados fácticos sobrepasan las dimensiones de violencia que se conocían y ponen a Colombia en tristes primeras posiciones del campeonato global de violaciones de derechos humanos.
La de la CEV no es una experiencia excepcional en la historia contemporánea: Irlanda, Rwanda, Surafrica, Guatemala, Argentina, Chile, y otros países en el mundo han encargado a comisiones oficiales de variadas nomenclaturas la tarea de indagar acerca de las responsabilidades, las razones, el contexto, los impactos de conflictos armados internos, dictaduras, y situaciones de graves violaciones de derechos humanos con el propósito de esclarecer lo ocurrido y contribuir a identificar condiciones y oportunidades para su no repetición.
Lo que es en cambio excepcional es que una comisión de la verdad haya sido concebida, haya trabajado y entregue sus resultados en plena era digital. Por primera vez en la historia de estos tipos de experiencias, la entrega final oficial de la CEV no es solo un informe textual, sino una compleja plataforma digital, que incluye un universo de datos e información transmedia. Por primera vez en las experiencias de las comisiones de la verdad, la metodología, los lenguajes, los equipos de trabajo, la comunicación interna y hacia afuera ha sido dominada por herramientas y formatos digitales. Por primera vez en este campo, funcionarios de la CEV se han preocupado desde un comienzo por documentar métodos, apoyarse en códigos abiertos, sistematizar datos y experiencias, experimentar formatos transmedia, preocuparse por la brecha digital en el país, y entender la oralidad de las víctimas del conflicto armado interno como una riqueza extraordinaria, y no un obstáculo documental. Por primera vez en la historia de las comisiones de la verdad, uno de los mayores problemas de gestión a enfrentar es cuál institución estará en capacidad de recibir el enorme y legalmente complejo archivo digital, garantizando el acceso abierto y no sucumbir a la obsolescencia tecnológica. En otras palabras, quizá el mayor de los resultados de la CEV es su legado digital.
La colombiana se vuelve entonces una experiencia fecunda para razonar acerca de temas importantes para las Humanidades Digitales globales y su relación con las transformaciones sociales y políticas mediadas. Estos van desde el rol de la sociedad civil en la formación, custodia, y consulta de archivos digitales de derechos humanos, hasta los desafíos de una edición digital que democratice el conocimiento, pasando por la formación de competencias digitales capaces por ejemplo de encontrar caminos creativos de superación de las brechas propias de la cultura digital. En el cumplimento de su misión entre 2018 y 2022, la CEV funcionó como un extraordinario laboratorio de Humanidades Digitales transformativas, un campo urgente para la agenda intelectual y de la formación académica internacional. Su legado digital representa una riqueza no solo para Colombia, sino para la comunidad internacional.
05.08.2022 16:15—17:45 Lauren Tilton (University of Richmond, USA)
English
DH and Images: Access, Discovery, & Communication
As DH takes a visual turn, how can we facilitate access and discovery of images? This talk will discuss how DH methods such as mapping, data visualizations, and computer vision can support opening up physical and born digital collections. The talk will draw on building and developing projects such as Photogrammar.
Français
Humanités Numériques : Accès, découverte et communication
Les humanités numériques prennent un tournant visuel : comment pouvons-nous faciliter l’accès et la découverte des images ? Cette présentation discutera de la façon dont les méthodes des humanités numériques telles que la cartographie, la visualisation de données et la vision par ordinateur peuvent soutenir l’ouverture des collections physiques et nées numériques. Cette présentation discutera la construction et le développement de Photogrammar et ADDI aussi.
Quinn Dombrowski (Stanford University, USA) & Sebastian Majstorovic (Austrian Centre for Digital Humanities and Cultural Heritage, Austria)
08.08.2022 16:15—17:45
English
Collaborative Volunteering in the Digital Humanities: Saving Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Online (SUCHO)
On March 1st, days after Russia invaded Ukraine, Anna Kijas, Quinn Dombrowski, and Sebastian Majstorovic co-founded “Saving Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Online” (SUCHO) to archive Ukrainian cultural heritage websites from at-risk servers. Since then, the project has brought together over 1,300 volunteers and has secured more than 50 TB of cultural heritage data from over 4,500 websites. While many of these websites belong to large libraries, archives, and museums, SUCHO takes a broad view of cultural heritage, including children’s after-school programs, fanfiction websites, and other places where ordinary people engage with cultural heritage in their day-to-day life.
This talk from two of the co-founders will cover opportunities and challenges that the project has faced over the past five months, and will discuss how experience with Digital Humanities can empower people to engage with crises and urgent social issues. It will also cover some of the practical questions which the SUCHO founders faced, as they had to coordinate an ad-hoc community of total strangers. How do you enable a large community of volunteers to effectively collaborate online? Which methods and tools are best suited for that purpose? How do you provide training for highly motivated volunteers with wildly differing digital skills to participate equally in a highly technical project? These are only some of the questions speakers will tackle based on the experiences they have gained as part of the SUCHO project.
Deutsch
Ehrenamtliche Gemeinschaftsprojekte in den digitalen Geisteswissenschaften: Saving Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Online (SUCHO)
Am 1. März, wenige Tage nach dem Einmarsch Russlands in die Ukraine, gründeten Anna Kijas, Quinn Dombrowski und Sebastian Majstorovic “Saving Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Online” (SUCHO), um digitales ukrainisches Kulturerbe auf gefährdeten Servern zu archivieren. Seitdem hat das Projekt über 1.300 Freiwillige rekrutiert und mehr als 50TB an Kulturerbe-Daten von über 4.500 Websites gesichert. Bei vielen dieser Websites handelt es sich um die digitalen Sammlungen großer Bibliotheken, Archive und Museen. SUCHO betrachtet das kulturelle Erbe jedoch aus einem breiteren Blickwinkel, der auch Freizeitprogramme für Kinder, Fanfiction-Websites und andere Orte umfasst, an denen normale Menschen in ihrem Alltag digitales Kulturerbe produzieren.
In diesem Vortrag werden zwei der Mitbegründer auf die Chancen und Herausforderungen eingehen, mit denen das Projekt in den letzten fünf Monaten konfrontiert war, und erörtern, wie digitale Geisteswissenschaften Menschen dazu befähigen können, sich in Krisen und sozialen Fragen ehrenamtlich zu engagieren. Außerdem werden einige der praktischen Fragen behandelt, mit denen die SUCHO-Gründer konfrontiert waren, als sie auf einmal eine ad-hoc Gemeinschaft von mehreren hundert Freiwilligen koordinieren mussten. Wie ermöglicht man es einer großen Anzahl von Freiwilligen online effektiv zusammenzuarbeiten? Welche Methoden und Tools eignen sich am besten für diesen Zweck? Wie schult man hochmotivierte Freiwillige mit sehr unterschiedlichen digitalen Kompetenzen, damit sie gleichberechtigt zu solch einem hochtechnischen Projekt beitragen können? Dies sind nur einige der Fragen, welche die Vortragenden mittels der Erfahrungen, die sie im Rahmen des SUCHO-Projektes gesammelt haben, versuchen werden zu beantworten.
Andrey Volodin (Moscow Lomonosov University, Russian Federation)
09.08.2022 16:15—17:45
English
Fragile! Russian historical collections: analog AND/OR/NOT digital
Any historical collection needs curation. It does not matter whether a collection is digital or analog. The quality of the curation usually predetermines the destiny of the collection. But sometimes history interferes with the changes Man proposes, but History disposes.
In Russia, for different reasons, the stability of collections analog as well as digital are under question now. In recent years, fierce disputes more and more often appeared in the national media related to the past. Sometimes these disputes result in conflicts between government bodies and public opinion. A striking example of the last year is the liquidation of “International Memorial” by a court decision. “Memorial” was a non-commercial organization studying political repressions in the USSR and in present-day Russia and promoting moral and legal rehabilitation of individuals subjected to political repressions. The Moscow initiative group “Memorial” emerged in 1987 and started collecting the historical archive and large datasets of repressed persons <https://www.memo.ru/ru-ru/collections/databases/>.
It is possible to compare today’s situation with the “archival revolution” in Russia in the early 1990s, when many important archives became available for researchers. Now there is a stronger desire to again cancel openness. But my point is that the opening-up of the ‘90s happened not by the will of the people at the top or state institutions, but by the dictates of the time. In my lecture I would like to emphasize three aspects of the so-called “digital turn” in history in Russia that give rise to three new important phenomena: history on demand, the past de visu, and crowdsourcing for historical collections.
Русский
Осторожно — хрупкое! Российские исторические коллекции: аналоговые AND/OR/NOT цифровые
Любая историческая коллекция нуждается в хранении: неважно, цифровая или аналоговая. Качество курирования данных, коллекций, собраний часто предопределяет судьбу коллекции, её включенность в исследования. Но иногда сама история вмешивается в судьбу коллекций. Человек предполагает, а история располагает.
В России по разным причинам устойчивость и выживаемость коллекций как аналоговых, так и цифровых сейчас оказывается важной задачей для научного сообщества. В последние годы в отечественных СМИ все чаще возникают острые споры, связанные с прошлым. Иногда эти споры выливаются в конфликты между государственными органами и общественным мнением. Ярким примером прошлого года является ликвидация «Международного Мемориала» по решению суда. Московская инициативная группа «Мемориал» возникла в 1987 году и за время своего существования собрала исторический архив и большие массивы данных о репрессированных <https://www.memo.ru/ru-ru/collections/databases/>.
Сегодняшнюю ситуацию можно сравнить с «архивной революцией» в России начала 1990-х годов, когда для исследователей открылись многие важные архивы. Сейчас возникают предложения избавиться от открытости как архивов, так и данных. Но следует иметь в виду, что уже имеющиеся открытые данные — свидетельство нового взгляда на прошлое, и такое открытие уже можно считать состоявшимся. В своей лекции я хотел бы подчеркнуть три аспекта так называемого «цифрового поворота» в изучении истории России: история по запросу, прошлое de visu и краудсорсинг исторических коллекций.
Emmanuel Ngue Um (Université de Yaoundé I, Cameroun)
11.08.2022 16:15—17:45
English
Language Documentation as Social Engagement. Experiences from Africa
Language Documentation (LD) emerged in the field of linguistics in response to the growing pace of language loss in different regions of the world. Language heritage being at the core of the intangible heritage of human societies, LD may justifiably qualify as a humanistic enterprise, with a keen attention to justice in language work, as much as care for the preservation of language heritage for future generations.
In reality, it would seem that the LD movement has grown over the last two decades mostly as a scientifically-driven enterprise, with a main concern for data collection, organization and archiving for scientific purposes.
Different factors may account for this state of facts, among which, the dominant understanding of language being a self-contained object. As such, LD has a tendency to align with the scientific agendas of linguistics, instead of placing language within a bigger networked reality which is social life.
The consideration of language as an abstract object leads to the reification of linguistic data as a reliable sampling of the social reality in which it is gathered. Just like plant species may be safeguarded in a herbarium and subsequently recultivated, so collections of data stemming from LD research are reputed to prepare for future revitalization and re-awakening work.
While archival collections resulting from LD are important holdings for research in the humanities, they miss the assemblage dimension that relates language, people, objects and places (Pennycook 2018). Language loss occurs (or seems to occur) whenever this assemblage is disturbed or reorganized.
The objective of this lecture is to discuss LD from a perspective that emphasizes this assemblage relationship. This entails looking into the social affordances by which language creates the space and the context in which it is produced (Pennycook 2010). More specifically, I will report on personal experiences of LD in Cameroon, one in a hunter-gatherer society, and the other in a social space with fluid language repertoires. In the first experience, I will show how a linguistics-focused LD work among the Bakola (Bagieli) missed the life reality of a social group where adjustment to the language ecology, i.e. adopting the language behavior of dominant groups is part of an apparatus of survival. In the second experience, I will report on how the reality of a cognitively distributed space in the Bati Canton in Cameroon has challenged the Saussurean notion of ‘synchrony’, leading a team of language documentarists to take away the temporal dimension of “synchrony’ that imposes fixity, and substitute it with the spatial dimension which relies on ‘spatial repertoires’, and the expansive, holistic nature of language (Canagarajah 2017).
Obviously, such conceptual adjustments in the course of LD work require that the researcher be committed to understanding the reality of the social life of the community in which s/he finds herself, beyond her/his scientific hubris.
References
Canagarajah, S. (2017). Translingual practice as spatial repertoires: Expanding the paradigm beyond structuralist orientations. Applied Linguistics 2017 (1-25). (Oxford: Oxford University Press), DOI:10.1093/applin/amx041.
Pennycook, A. (2018). Posthumanist Applied Linguistics. (London & New York: Routledge), 168 pp.
Pennycook, A. (2010). Language as a Local Practice. (London & New York: Routledge), 167 pp.
Basaa
Litédés mahop, bôlô i ngôô-bôt. Ndémbél inlôlak i minsélél i Afrika
Bôlô i litédés mahop (LM) ikédé ntjep-yi u litoñol mahop, ibibahlana ni nduña inyu ihék jegi le, i likat libibôdôl je jôga li mahop ni nkoñ-hisi, likônde habañ tjama. Kiki hop won uyé i ñem-kédé u Mbog i maloñ, wee bôlô i litédés mahop iyé ntiik bôlô i ngôô inyu nseñ u bôt-ba-binam ; inlamga ni tôñ le bôlô yokiyo intihba mahop, isélga ni ngôô, itôñôk ki le tjay di bôt dinlo tjok dikoba mana mahop.
Ni mbale, impôna uyik wee, ibôdôl ntel u ngéda umbol môm-maa ma nwii nano, LM linyôôp téntén i yi-kaat, lilôôhaga tôñ ni likôhle minje inyu litoñol yi, ni lisange nwo, ni lisôône nwo.
Diyé le dihégda le inya i liboñok i, inlôl ni jôga li manjel, kiki bo libak le jôga li batoñol mahop, lintehe le hop uyé héhéga yada ikédé bihéhéga bipe. Inyu hala nyen LM linlôôha hés nson u litoñol mahop mahoñ, henwaa le litinak hop tel yéé kiki hikôm hyada ikédé jut li dikôm di mam ma niñ.
Kiki batoñol mahop bambéna hoñol le hop uyé ngwélés u héhéga, hala antinde bo i hégda le minje mi hop (kiki bo ngim i ndémbél i mapôdôl), miyé mbôgi iyôni i niñ i bôt bampot mo. Hégda iyé le nlémlém kiki mut ayé le atééda ndana i ngim bebela inyu litiimba hôlôs yo imbus ngéda, hala nyen mayaa ma minje ma mankôda ikédé LM, mayé le mahôla inyu litugul tole litôdôl ngim hop imbus ngéda.
Iba bé itéñés nseñ u mayaa ma minje mi mahop mankôda ikédé LM inyu bôlô i ndoñol-yi i niñ i bôt ba binam, mini minje nwotama minla bé éba igwelnagwelna ayé ipôla mahop, bôt, gwom, ni bahoma (Pennycook, 2018). Likat liyé libôdôl jél hop (tole linenge le limbôdôl jél hop), hingéda igwelnagwelna nunu ansagla tole ambogba i libogbaga liyondo.
Njom u unu nkwel iyé liyigye nunu gwelnagwelna. Hala agatinde i siiye dipa di niñ i bôt di dimbôñ le hop won ukegek bahoma ni mangéda umpôdna (Pennycook, 2010). Tôbôtôbô, unu nkwel uga pôdôl dihéga di bôlô diba di LM i Kamerun, hyada i pôla baniñil i nsômbi ni nkeda, hipe ipôla maloñ mansobna mahop. I hihega hi bisu, megaéba lelaa nson u LM ipôla i loñ dinsébél Bako, u ubihégdana kiki ka ngéda likilik li ntjep u litoñol mahop, hala atuga tibil nok kom-liniñik nu ngim ibôt bayé le, limeya mahop ma maloñ mo ni bo manôônga, liyé ngim nsômba u niñ. I hihéga hinyônôs iba, mega unda kikii bôlô i LM ipôla maloñ ma manlôñha biyi, ibinyégsa batédés mahop itjôô ini nôgôl i Saussure le « synchronie » i inyégsa ibénge hop biyiyii, ni liyiha yo ni nôgôl ipe, imbéngne hop bitétéé, ibéngege lela ndaye i mapôdôl i mpôdna yoniyo, ni lela hop uyé kiki nkôô u kwede (Canagarajah, 2017).
Hala ayé mbale le, likena bôlô i LM munu ini njel yondo, li nyégsa le ntoñol-yi abana ndun inigil libak li Mbog ihet ansélél bôlô yéé, ni le ayémbél lipamal jéé, nye kiki nyi-mam.