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On the Method of the “STS of Documents” in Digital Humanities
I’ve published a new blog post ‘On the Method of the “STS of Documents” in Digital Humanities‘ on my research website dhinfra.org. In that post, I outline my ongoing ethnographic research at King’s Digital Lab and study of documents produced by the lab. Based on the analysis of 40 ‘Feasibility documents’, I have aimed to understand how they inform the lab management work and how they contribute to structuring the digital research process. To this end, I apply the method of the ‘STS of documents’ and analyse Feasibility documents in a manner similar to STS-based studies of scientific labs’ protocols and kits. The outcome of my analysis will be published in the Convergence special issue ‘Critical Technical Practice(s) in Digital Research‘. In the forthcoming article, I intend to show that documents can be studied as ethnographic objects that can help to reveal critical and socio-technical practices entangled with operational methods and local requirements. In the blog post, in turn, I reflect on the lab management and workflow by referring to a research project conducted in collaboration with King’s Digital Lab. You can find the essay here.
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Infrastructural Interventions
I’m excited to announce that the registration for the “Infrastructural Interventions” (21-22 June 2021) workshop is open on Eventbrite. Get a ticket now!
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Infrastructure as the Origin of Inequities
I have recently participated in the Global Digital Humanities Symposium organised by Michigan State University, US. You can find the abstract for my talk “Infrastructure as the Origin of Inequities: A Case of Global Digital Humanities” below and slides presentation on my research blog dhinfra.org. More details can be found on the MSU Global DH website here.
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Laboratory ethnography during a pandemic
On my research blog dhinfra.org, you can find my new post “Laboratory ethnography during a pandemic: On temporality, instability and co-production“. I reflect on methodological and ethical challenges of doing an ethnography during these difficult times. Drawing on my ethnographic study at King’s Digital Lab, I have produced the following principles for approaching a laboratory ethnography during a pandemic: permanent temporality, planned spontaneity, a mixture of work and home, and instability of environment. These preliminary concepts reveal the strangeness of the contemporary moment that makes it difficult to apply standard ethnographic methods. The strangeness of these aspects, unsettling now, might however become an intrinsic part of an emerging new type of “post-pandemic” ethnography we don’t know yet. I also argue that a pandemic situation can help to disclose knowledge about the community and workplace that otherwise would remain hidden and unnoticed. Critical situations can say a lot about labs’ culture and community. This is the time for sharpening a sensibility for things that are exposed: care, trust, and collectivity. Further, I pose the following questions: How do workplaces re-prioritize their work in light of challenges? What is the most important goal for a lab during the crisis? What does a lab do to reconcile individual concerns and management requirements to “keep the lab going”? How is a “lab culture” evinced in strategies adopted in the face of an emergency? These set of questions might become part of the methodological guidance for the ethnography of laboratories in unstable times. You can find the essay here.
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“DH Lab” book
I am excited to share that my book “Digital Humanities and Laboratories: Perspectives on Knowledge, Infrastructure and Culture”, I am editing together with Dr Christopher Thomson (University of Canterbury), has been accepted by Routledge. The collection will be published as one of research titles in the Digital Research in the Arts and Humanities series.
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