THATCamp Paris, in 2010 May, wrote a Manifesto as a French contribution to Centernet Summit, to THATCamp London and to DH2010. Is this Manifesto useful for the DH future? Do you agree with it? Would you sign it? Would you promote it? Would you mofidy it? If we want DH to be an international deep movement, we need to define our aims, our values, our methods and our beliefs. Let’s discuss about The Manifesto for Digital Humanities (to be translated in 17 languages).
THATCamp London 2010 website designed by Loaded Dice Design Ltd.
[…] Paris, in 2010 May, wrote a Manifesto as a French contribution to Centernet Summit, to THATCamp London and to DH2010. Is this Manifesto useful for the DH […]
I don’t think you’ve read the documents on the Paris ThatCamp site. This is a typical anglo-american misunderstanding / understatement. The Paris DH Manifesto was conceived by people from different countries. So it is not just a “French” contribution, it’s an international Manifesto. Actually, as opposed to the Stanford Manifesto, this is the first document to be translated in several languages, including Russian and Arabic. I think that many people are deeply unsatisfied with the way things have been managed (and imagined) by the self-called “international” DH community. The old same faces have been around for a long time. Just as in the international financial and world market scenario, decisions have been always been taken in the same old places: London, the US, and a handful of Canadian centres. Nothing personal, but the world, if you didn’t notice it, has changed. Never heard, for example, about BRICS? Even if some people don’t like it, the world is becoming multipolar. ALLC has been nepotistic and familistic for a long time, and now we have ADHO, which does not seem to be very different. Five out of seven people of its Steering Committee voting members come from anglo-american countries. At least five of these have been seating on ACH and ALLC boards for ages. One of the two only non-anglo-american has been an ALLC representative or board member for at least fifteen years. Can anyone really believe this is a “new” organization? Instead of waiting that these old organizations become really democratic and genuinely multicultural, I think it is better to create alternative associations. May be they will be less visible, but research and teaching quality has not much to do with visibility and political power. I remember that Stuart Hall, when he was offered a post in an American university, responded: “I prefer to speak from the margins than from the centre”.
[…] Dacos, M. THAT CAMP Manifesto for the Digital Humanities , 2011. Web. 30 Sept. 2013 thatcamplondon.org/2010/07/the-french-digital-humanities-manifesto/ […]