Revisiting Connotations of Digital Humanists: Exploratory Interviews

TL;DR

This study explores how digital humanists perceive their identity and community, revealing diverse understandings and the complexity of the DH workforce through interviews with practitioners, contributing to ongoing DH scholarship.

Contribution

It provides new insights into digital humanists' self-identification and community perceptions, enriching understanding of the DH research landscape a decade after initial efforts.

Findings

Diverse understandings of 'digital humanist' among researchers

Complexity and variability in digital humanist community perceptions

Insights into workforce dynamics in digital humanities

Abstract

This ongoing study revisits the connotations of "digital humanists" and explores the reasons why a researcher does or does not self-identify as a digital humanist. Building on semi-structured interview data collected from fourteen researchers and practitioners engaging in digital humanities (DH) projects, this poster illustrates researchers' various understandings of "digital humanist" as a term and research identity and highlights the complexity of "digital humanists" as a research community. This study contributes to DH scholarship with insights into the collective imaginations of the digital humanist as a research community one decade after the early attempts. Findings of this research study also facilitate a more thorough, timely, and dynamic discussion of the major workforce in digital humanities, potentially paving the way for future research on labor and collaboration in the DH research domain.