Periodic Reporting for period 1 - DHLab (Digital Humanities Laboratory: Studying the Entanglement of Infrastructure and Technology in Knowledge Production.)
Reporting period: 2020-10-01 to 2022-09-30
In this research, I proposed to conduct a novel ethnographic study of digital humanists at work, combined with a critical analysis of local infrastructure to investigate the entanglement of infrastructure and technology in digital humanities knowledge creation. The complexity of this phenomenon calls for epistemological and methodological developments; thus, I proposed revisiting existing approaches to build a new interdisciplinary toolset for studying knowledge constructed in a physical and digital environment. This project came at a key moment, one at which, with the rise of humanities labs, it was necessary to examine and understand the impact of socio-material assemblages on the process of scholarly knowledge production to improve the research infrastructure. This research had, therefore, great importance for the development of the digital humanities field and for opening new research avenues. I aimed to expand the emerging field of Critical Infrastructure Studies through contributions to the body of theoretical work and to initiatives of the international research group. This project also aimed to advance the state of the art within digital humanities by applying tools from Knowledge Infrastructures and Science and Technology Studies. It proposed to consolidate the ethnography of infrastructure―largely unexplored in digital humanities―using an original methodology applicable to surfacing the invisible layers of organisational systems and studying how they manage, control, and transfer information. Based on the case study of King’s Digital Lab, I aimed to provide comprehensive knowledge of digital humanities organisational systems and practices.
The research had three main objectives: 1) the epistemological goal was to develop a new theoretical framework for examining a laboratory in digital humanities drawing on Science and Technology Studies and Knowledge Infrastructures; 2) the methodological task aimed at integrating laboratory ethnography and the ethnography of infrastructure to build a new toolset for studying the intertwining of human organisation and infrastructure; and 3) the central work package focuses on investigating digital research knowledge creation based on the case study of King’s Digital Lab. The study was based on the observation of, and interviews with, participants involved in the labs, the analysis of written documents, and the analysis of digital communications.
The research had three main objectives: 1) the epistemological goal was to develop a new theoretical framework for examining a laboratory in digital humanities drawing on Science and Technology Studies and Knowledge Infrastructures; 2) the methodological task aimed at integrating laboratory ethnography and the ethnography of infrastructure to build a new toolset for studying the intertwining of human organisation and infrastructure; and 3) the central work package focuses on investigating digital research knowledge creation based on the case study of King’s Digital Lab. The study was based on the observation of, and interviews with, participants involved in the labs, the analysis of written documents, and the analysis of digital communications.
This research delivered eleven papers, eight talks at international conferences and seminars, and two contracts for publishing two monographs with Routledge and the University of Minnesota Press. The main publications include the article Infrastructuring digital humanities: On relational infrastructure and global reconfiguration of the field published in the “Digital Scholarship in the Humanities”. The goal of this article is to provide a broader perspective on the study of DH labs situated in a local environment and entangled with global infrastructures of knowledge and technologies. The next paper Critical Studies of a Tech Stack: A Technological Network Perspective (https://dhinfra-org.github.io/336/critical-studies-of-a-tech-stack-a-technological-network-perspective/) proposes to use the network visualisation method combined with a laboratory ethnography to represent the technology stack of King’s Digital Lab (see the attached image) and discuss the complex global and local technological landscape through which digital humanities institutions, the IT industry, and society are brought together. A dynamic network visualisation has been created in the Observable tool by Miguel Vieira (KDL) and it is accessible in the Observable notebook with this link: https://observablehq.com/@jmiguelv/dhlab-kdl-technology-network. The dataset has been released in the King’s Open Research Data System: https://kcl.figshare.com/articles/dataset/King_s_Digital_Lab_Technology_Network/17372021. The article Feasibility documents as critical structuring objects: An approach to the study of documents in digital research production published in the “Convergence”, in turn, investigates Feasibility documents produced by King’s Digital Lab within the Agile-based Software Development Lifecycle framework to reveal the research management and development stages. I aimed to provide a methodological framework for the analysis of documents produced in digital humanities that have the potential to unearth new questions about the socio-technical nature of digital production.
This project delivered two online workshops organised by King’s Digital Lab and in conjunction with the Department of Digital Humanities and the Critical Infrastructure Studies Collective group. The first workshop “Infrastructural Interventions” (21-22 June 2021) brought together leading thinkers in digital humanities to critically interrogate the economic, political, and socio-technical dimensions of contemporary infrastructure. The next one was the “Interrogating Global Traces of Infrastructure” (18 November 2021) was focused on discussing practices of interrogating global topographies of knowledge, data, and IT infrastructures and their influence on local social, economic, and research conditions. Both workshops were successful and well-received in the digital humanities community.
This project delivered two online workshops organised by King’s Digital Lab and in conjunction with the Department of Digital Humanities and the Critical Infrastructure Studies Collective group. The first workshop “Infrastructural Interventions” (21-22 June 2021) brought together leading thinkers in digital humanities to critically interrogate the economic, political, and socio-technical dimensions of contemporary infrastructure. The next one was the “Interrogating Global Traces of Infrastructure” (18 November 2021) was focused on discussing practices of interrogating global topographies of knowledge, data, and IT infrastructures and their influence on local social, economic, and research conditions. Both workshops were successful and well-received in the digital humanities community.
The main impact of this project has been on the research culture created and cultivated by digital humanities laboratories. The main finding was that not all groups who contribute to developing digital humanities work, including research software engineers, are equally visible and recognised, and labour issues are increasingly salient. This research provided a strong voice towards recognition in digital production. The findings were presented in the “Digital humanities needs equality between humanists and technicians” article published in Times Higher Education.
My research has also generated a strong intellectual impact on the establishment of new research directions. My book collection Digital Humanities and Laboratories: Perspectives on Knowledge, Infrastructure and Culture (Routledge) aims to pave the way toward “laboratory studies” as a new research avenue in digital humanities. This collection aims to open explorations of the culture and politics of digital humanities labs and brings digital humanists into the interdisciplinary debate concerning the notion of a laboratory as a critical angle for interrogating knowledge, society, and technology. This book will be the first publication that investigates in-depth digital humanities laboratories from multiple perspectives and calls for re-envisioning and imaging a feminist, decolonised, and critical laboratory that is more attuned to the challenges of the present and future.
This research has also developed a new research direction that is a critical study of tech stacks and applied a technology network methodology, not used for this purpose before, to investigate the connections between the technology stack and the workplace culture. The critical studies of the tech stack with a new approach have the potential to open up new research avenues focused on interrogating local technologies and infrastructure and their entanglement with socio-cultural and institutional values. This work has been developed as part of the larger initiatives towards the development of the nascent field of critical infrastructure studies in digital humanities.
My research has also generated a strong intellectual impact on the establishment of new research directions. My book collection Digital Humanities and Laboratories: Perspectives on Knowledge, Infrastructure and Culture (Routledge) aims to pave the way toward “laboratory studies” as a new research avenue in digital humanities. This collection aims to open explorations of the culture and politics of digital humanities labs and brings digital humanists into the interdisciplinary debate concerning the notion of a laboratory as a critical angle for interrogating knowledge, society, and technology. This book will be the first publication that investigates in-depth digital humanities laboratories from multiple perspectives and calls for re-envisioning and imaging a feminist, decolonised, and critical laboratory that is more attuned to the challenges of the present and future.
This research has also developed a new research direction that is a critical study of tech stacks and applied a technology network methodology, not used for this purpose before, to investigate the connections between the technology stack and the workplace culture. The critical studies of the tech stack with a new approach have the potential to open up new research avenues focused on interrogating local technologies and infrastructure and their entanglement with socio-cultural and institutional values. This work has been developed as part of the larger initiatives towards the development of the nascent field of critical infrastructure studies in digital humanities.