The KPLEX project was created with a two-fold purpose: first, to expose potential areas of bias in big data research, and second, to do so using methods and challenges coming from a research community that has been relatively resistant to big data, namely the arts and humanities. The project’s founding supposition was that there are practical and cultural reasons why humanities research resists datafication, a process generally understood as the substitution of original state research objects and processes for digital, quantified or otherwise more structured streams of information. The project’s further assumption was that these very reasons for resistance could be instructive for the critical observation of big data research and innovation. To understand clearly the features of humanistic and cultural data, approaches, methodologies, institutions and challenges is to see the fault lines where datafication and algorithmic parsing may fail to deliver on what they promise, or may hide the very insight they propose to expose. As such, the aim of the KPLEX project has been to pinpoint areas where different research communities’ understanding of what the creation of knowledge is and should be diverge, and, from this unique perspective, propose where further work can and should be done.
Although the KPLEX project had only a short duration (15 months), its results point toward a number of central issues and possible development avenues for a future of big data research that is socially aware and informed, but which also harnesses opportunities to explore new pathways to technical innovations. The challenges for the future of this research and for its exploitation will be to overcome the social and cultural barriers between the languages and practices not only of research communities, but also of the ICT industry and policy sectors. The KPLEX results point toward clear potential value in these areas, for the uptake of the results, their application to meet societal challenges, and for improving public knowledge and action. Such reuse, however, may take significant investment and time, so as to establish common vocabulary and overturn long-standing biases and power dynamics. The potential benefits, however, could be great, in terms of technical, social and cultural innovation.
