Convergences in a Multiple Context of Redefining the Humanities

In order to gain a wider understanding of the field, I believe that DH must be considered as part of a complex scenario in which various reformulations of the humanities and their role in the world are being proposed.

Without a doubt, mention must be made of the so-called new humanities. As defined and practiced by a research group at the Università di Roma Tre (Bergonzi et al., “New Humanities Project”), the new humanities addresses the concepts of interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity from a critical standpoint. From this perspective, which delves deeper into the constellated nature of the new order of knowledge (for indeed it forms a constellation rather than a grid), the new humanities seeks to explore unprecedented models that connect knowledge produced by disciplines that are traditionally very distant, at least in the knowledge system we inherited from modern times. Thus, continuously crossing the usual disciplinary borders and coming up with new interpretations of the world impel us to reconsider the artificiality of the current order of scientific-academic disciplines, and to reevaluate the cognitive and epistemic potential of the frontier territories.

The “public humanities,” in the sense of being open to citizens at large, emerges from undoing the hierarchical organization of knowledge and asserting its own legitimacy in all its different forms. Public humanities proposes to build spaces in which academic and nonacademic communities can collaborate to elaborate a common knowledge that is valid and meaningful for all. Logically, this approach redefines the role of academia as a social and cultural agent, so as to ensure that the knowledge produced in universities permeates the whole of society in a milieu of transversality. It is important to emphasize this term “transversality,” as it implies a substantial difference from the policies of dissemination that form part of our academic tradition. Dissemination involves transferring expert knowledge to a nonexpert audience, in a single direction. Public humanities dispenses with this one-way movement in favor of a productive, dialogic, horizontal, and collaborative exchange.

The notion of “generative humanities,” as proposed by Anne Burdick and her colleagues (Digital Humanities), refers to the contemporary transformation of the humanities into a generative enterprise in which students and teachers “make things” when they study or conduct research, producing not only texts in the traditional sense (analyses, comments, narratives, critiques, etc.), but also images, interactions, cross-media stories, web platforms, applications, and so forth. In this sense, Alejandro Piscitelli (“Humanidades digitales”) urges us to reconceptualize humanists, to stop thinking of them as simply “publishers” and to understand them also to be “makers.”

This idea of generative humanities connects with the emergence of fab labs and the maker culture, where emphasis is placed on the materialities of the creative and/or research process and on the conditions that define the processes of producing, constructing, and distributing knowledge. This approach, within the framework of digital culture, is particularly important because it helps us to dismantle the fallacy that digital objects are immaterial simply because we cannot touch them. In other words, it helps to undo the epistemological error of the immateriality of the internet. Aware of the material conditions and productive processes underlying the construction and distribution of knowledge allows us to expand the critical dimension of DH toward other aspects that have so far gone unnoticed and that imply the reconsideration of certain practices relating to labor, economics, politics, ecology, and other matters.

In my opinion, the idea of DSSDHS must be situated at the intersection of these reformulations, integrating their approaches in a new synthesis.

The South

If, as we have said, the idea of DSSDHS is not alien to the critical side of DH, neither is it alien to contemporary discourses on the Global South and theories of globality. For this reason, thinking about what DSSDHS could be cannot be separated from the problematization of the term “South,” investing it with new meaning and placing it in another order of understanding and a new space of critical discussion.

It is not possible here to examine the idea of the “South” in detail, but I will put down a few ideas that I consider to be essential in this context. I expect I would be stating the obvious if I said that the South is a complex notion that cannot be reduced to a monolithic, homogeneous concept. There are many Souths, just as there are many Norths. In fact, the North-South logic is like a fractal, a structure that is repeated on different scales. Thus Europe—the North in certain geopolitical contexts—has its own South, while in this European South the North-South structure is replicated within the different nation-states. I think the comparison with the fractal helps us to understand the North-South tension beyond the “West vs. non-West” binary axis.

However, there is clearly a link between the idea of the South and a particular physical territoriality. Hence the need for a digital pluralism is associated from the start with geographic and geopolitical diversity, as an argument in favor of the decentralization and decolonization of the idea of DH that would result from the visibility of other practices, approaches, concepts, and representations occurring in nonhegemonic spaces.

Yet this decentralization, linked to the physical territoriality of multiple local contexts, must be complemented by decentralization of a mental, cognitive, and subjective nature—that is to say, the mind and consciousness of the subject as the primary territory must be decolonized to show up subalternity and hegemony as states of subjective interiorization, shared by a collective group and often operating from the unconscious.

At the same time, this approach implies that if we can think of “locality” and “situatedness” as a mental space, we can also think of “place” as something that can be constructed in the subjective consciousness, as a state of consciousness that can stem from a reflexive standpoint. It can therefore emerge as an autonomous, free, and independent decision by the subject, to be withdrawn or revealed as it encounters various contextual determinations and internalized discourses—in short, rooted in the possible choices that we as humans can make in exercising our freedom. In this sense, the notion of the South, as a “place” from which to think or act, is expanded beyond a geographical or geopolitical space (a factor that irremediably shapes the way we are and think) to a state of mind and consciousness that is adopted or constructed as part of a political decision.1

As I see it, this is the chief perspective from which we can think about the idea of DSSDHS, and this would be its first mission: to create the conditions that make it possible to achieve a mental emancipation that allows us to access real freedom of action. I believe that this idea of the South can be a fitting basis to define a common horizon of understanding. It can prevent us from getting lost in the debate on the legitimacy of the different Souths or on the legitimacy of actors speaking from a Southern horizon—debates that turn the South into a new battlefield for its control. It can also alert us to the merely territorial use of the term to designate initiatives that arise in the “geographical south” but which still do not incorporate the idea of the South as a point of critical discussion and political action. In such contexts, “South” is a deactivated term, devoid of the technopolitical and critical tension that, in my opinion, it must have.

DSSDHS carries the recognition that other digital practices, ways of understanding the technological processes of our era other than the current and dominant ones are possible. But it is important that this condition of otherness should not be understood in confrontation with the models of the North or of English-speaking countries: a state of confrontation would only return us to a binary logic of antagonistic thinking, which is precisely one of the set patterns to be overcome. Likewise, it is necessary to prevent the Southern perspective from ending up as a new totalitarian way of thinking, simply a new seizure of power by other actors. On the contrary, what we are trying to achieve is a space for symmetry, rebalance, horizontality, and productive dialogue, because the big issue we have to deal with is: How do we all live together in a global space? How do we build a common space in which we all feel represented, where all of us find ourselves on an equal footing?

Praxis as an Ethical Commitment of Theory

The critical dimension of DSSDHS, and of digital humanities in general, should not be confined to thought. Digital humanities must also involve action, since the objective of seeking disruption entails “acting” in such a way that the disruption occurs and has a real impact on the fields of knowledge, society, politics, and culture. Hence digital humanities must also be “active” humanities, adopting an activist research paradigm that measures the quality of the knowledge produced by its effect on reality and its capacity to transform the world into a more rebalanced, fair, and equitable place.

This hybridization of thinking and acting—that is, the transition from pure critical analysis to action—is also part of a new paradigm of knowledge. This, in fact, is the idea put forward by Mikhail Epstein in The Transformative Humanities: “Are the humanities a purely scholarly field, or should they have some active, constructive supplement? . . . Every humanistic discipline needs its practical extension in order to convert knowledge into constructive thinking and creative action” (12).

As I have already pointed out (Rodríguez Ortega, “Design Thinking y metodologías”), the introduction of critical perspectives—with their emphasis (inter alia) on the unveiling of power relations, the dismantling of the underlying discourses, the deconstruction of meanings, the awareness of institutional and contextual mediations in knowledge production processes, and so on—has made an important contribution to the development of critical thinking. It has contributed no less to cognitive and emotional understanding of the meanings linked to sociocultural agents, products, and systems, as well as to the epistemologies produced by them. Critical deconstruction alone, however, runs the risk of limiting itself to simply dismantling systems without building or producing anything new. It is true that new themes of theories and concepts that provide critical ways of understanding is a necessary condition for any process of transformation to begin. It is also true that constructing something new implies a critical awareness of what already exists; but at some point, one must proceed to action—that is, to validate that critical interpretation by producing relevant and transforming actions: “taking the qualitative leap translated into action so that research can radically transform the world” (D’Souza, “Cárceles del conocimiento,” 122).

Adherence to praxis as an ethical commitment of theory is therefore indispensable for an agenda of DSSDHS. In other words, it is not only a question of making a series of statements and/or pronouncements but also of pledging a real commitment to them. If DSSDHS aspires to become an agent of social, political, cultural, and epistemic transformation, it needs to adopt this paradigm of thinking and action based on a genuine ethical commitment. And that, without a doubt, is problematic, because it entails more than a few personal sacrifices. For example, there is no point in writing incisive articles on the hegemonies exercised by publishing companies that capitalize and privatize knowledge today while, at the same time, striving hard so that our scientific-academic production appears to be integrated within these clear structures of hegemonic power.

Adopting the action-research paradigm is not trivial, because it confronts us with ourselves. It compels us to reevaluate what our aspirations are. It challenges us to revise our personal ambitions within the framework of the ideals we defend, thus revealing our contradictions: in short, it makes us rethink why we do what we do, and to what end. It is true that “academic suicide,” or placing oneself completely outside the system, might be unrewarding today. It is, therefore, a matter of developing alternative structures that afford us the confidence that by losing some of the contemporary narcissistic individuality discussed by Bauman (Retrotopia), which can be extrapolated to the academic domain, we will reap greater collective benefit.

Epistemological Colonialisms and Cognitive-Linguistic Hegemonies

There are a number of spaces for action. Naturally, the problem of epistemological colonialisms and cognitive-linguistic hegemonies calls for a priority line of action that has to do with imbalances in the systems of access, production, distribution, and validation of knowledge. This polycephalous problem confronts us, in turn, with a multitude of conflicts. The following are just a few of them:

1. The academic systems in which DH has traditionally been located are strongly affected by asymmetries, as they are based on a hierarchical structure that needs endorsement from the hegemonic discourses of legitimation for them to take their place as “relevant” actors in the global knowledge system. The uncritical incorporation of methodologies, strategic lines of research, models for measurement and evaluation, and so on is the most obvious consequence. It is therefore necessary to look for a new institutional framework in which the actors work toward a dialogical and horizontal community of interests and not only on the basis of strategic policies imposed from above. This community of interests must be open to a variety of knowledge that is not hierarchical and is in a constant state of flux.
2. The privatization, capitalization, and commodification of knowledge by large publishing monopolies is among the most pressing concerns. Moreover, these processes often happen with the explicit connivance of the state, which has no qualms about paying large sums of money to access the results of research that they themselves have funded, in a perverse cycle of expenditure of public money.
3. Mechanisms of control, and appropriation of the systems and means of knowledge production and distribution, must be another major focus of attention. In this sense, the consubstantial dependence between technological materialities and the mere possibility of producing and circulating knowledge compels us to relocate power relations in a new framework, to rethink cultural hegemony and subalternity from a new perspective. In other words, it obliges us to ask ourselves who holds control over the materials that make the production and distribution of knowledge possible today; who is in possession of the economic resources and knowledge required to manufacture and build those resources; who decides the processes of circulation of knowledge; how can they determine who may and who may not participate; what cultural representations and ideological assumptions are embedded in these structures imposed upon us (Rodríguez-Ortega, “Five Central Concepts to Think”). This inquiry must include all the processes involved, because all of them, from the decision about what to digitize to those related to cataloging, recording, encoding, and structuring, are political statements (either implicit or explicit) with epistemological consequences, conditioning the digital representation that we construct of our cultural legacy.

As actors directly involved in constructing and developing these technological materials, the practitioners of digital humanities bear a special responsibility, allowing us new opportunities for intervention: for example, by developing formal models of the cultural reality that can express its full diversity and complexity or by advocating technological models that are horizontal and transversal, honest and transparent.

Political-Cultural and Social Problems of Postdigital Societies

Owing to its very raison d’être, DSSDHS must maintain an effective commitment to the political-cultural and social problems of postdigital societies. It is crucial to investigate, first of all, the real or potential inequalities and imbalances of geopolitical, socioeconomic, gender-related, and other factors, as well as the new peripheries, exclusions, and marginalities being created on both large and small scales. Taking these factors together, the shift toward the social that we are experiencing in all spheres also pushes us to expand the field of action of DH through projects and initiatives that use the digital and the computational to promote processes of social transformation and innovation whereby we can advance toward more inclusive, equitable, sustainable, creative, and emancipated societies.

This inquiry and these initiatives must be based on technological solutions that are appropriate to the territory where they are generated, so that they can be used locally and incorporated into local knowledge systems (Peyloubet et al., “Desarrollo local a partir”). It is therefore important to distinguish between initiatives of this kind and projects of “technological philanthropy” that are flaunted by some actors in the digital industry, turning the access factor (through the infrastructures they provide) into the “principle” of equality and rebalance. We should not fool ourselves: the problem of the digital divide lies not only in the conditions of access but also, as I said earlier, in the monopolistic control of the means and systems of production and distribution. There is no point in achieving global access to the internet if it is necessary to buy materials from third countries, pay for knowledge, use proprietary platforms, consume their digital content, and so on. Access does not guarantee territorial and social rebalance; on the contrary, if poorly managed, it can become a factor in perpetuating the dependence of some countries on others.

It is also necessary to look at the processes of social appropriation of technology outside the strictly academic sphere of the digital humanities, since they can be good sources from which to draw inspiration. For this purpose, I recommend exploring, among others, the projects “From the Center” (https://vimeo.com/user7696400), “Map Kibera” (http://mapkibera.org/), and “El Cabanyal” (http://www.cabanyalarchivovivo.es/index.html), in which, respectively, a collective group of individuals (imprisoned women), a territorial community (Kibera), and a site steeped in memory and cultural heritage (El Cabanyal) find a place in which to remember and experience their heritage. That heritage is reconstructed, made visible, and validated in a hybrid context where the socialization of technology assumes an essential role and the social community takes control of its own process of transformation.

There is also an urgent need to focus on the processes giving rise to a new alienation of the subject in contemporary postindustrial societies. The subject is isolated and distanced from reality owing to constant digital hyperconnection: a subject deprived of its own life project by the dissociation between personal vocation and labor. The latter is determined by the bureaucratic powers of the system, responding to the strategic lines defined by the dominant actors. The subject is also alienated from the benefits produced by its work, owing to the precarious regimes induced by the neoliberal agenda and the networked world. The subject is thereby instrumentalized in its main mechanisms of action, vocation, and enthusiasm, by “a system that favours anxiety, conflict and dependence to the benefit of competitive hyperproduction and speed” (Zafra, Entusiasmo, 17). It is therefore necessary to conceive and propose new logics that reconnect human beings with their own interests and needs, with aspirations and expectations modeled by an honest pact between individuals and the conditions in which they lead their lives: not by external markets, whether academic, financial, or technological.

Further, and in relation to the above, it is necessary to seek alternative models to the discourse of the currently prevalent quantified axiology: that is, the construction and imposition of value systems based on rankings and metrics, more often than not developed using nontransparent algorithms designed by the dominant technological actors. We cannot forget that metrics and rankings are legitimating discourses that have a direct effect on people’s lives, which end up being planned to comply with the value parameters ratified by those algorithmic hierarchies. Our aspirations, expectations, and frustrations are marked by them.

This discussion is not trivial, for it involves asking ourselves essential questions about what is relevant and for whom it is relevant; what the impact is, what it is for, and who it is for; what “value” means for contemporary society; how that value is generated and created, reused and expanded; and also, of course, how it comes to be capitalized, commodified, and instrumentalized. Asking these questions implies confronting ourselves with the crucial question of what the axiological project of the humanities and cultural practice in general should be in the twenty-first century.