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Mar Hicks: Rethinking Computable Subjects: Methods, Topics, and Boundaries in the History of Computing

The history of computing has been written in large part as a history of institutions and powerful people, or people serving powerful interests, that has tended to normalize the hierarchies embedded in modern computing systems. This talk looks at examples from that history with a focus on instances of resistance and pushback, to offer an alternative set of tools and methods for writing (and reading) computing’s history.

„Mar Hicks: Rethinking Computable Subjects: Methods, Topics, and Boundaries in the History of Computing“ weiterlesen

Sarah Lang: Tackling Data Gaps through Digital Humanities Practice

This talk explores how documentation and auditing can serve as powerful tools for positive change by making our research and datasets more transparent. Detailed documentation not only facilitates the effective and responsible reuse of datasets and algorithms but also promotes more inclusive scholarship and ethical research outcomes. Openness, access, and accessibility encompass both technical and ethical dimensions. These principles aim to democratize inclusive access to knowledge and advocate for community engagement to address pressing societal challenges and more specifically, challenges of the field, such as combating the epistemicide of non-Western ways of knowing, decolonizing digital humanities, and addressing (gender) data gaps.

„Sarah Lang: Tackling Data Gaps through Digital Humanities Practice“ weiterlesen

Whitney Trettien, Roberto Gonzalez: Data Frictions in the History of Prisons

In the 1880s, printing presses entered U.S. prisons. Since then, hundreds of newspapers have been written, edited, and printed inside prisons. These range from underground zines reproduced by hand to widely circulated magazines and newspapers. Together, these texts form a powerful counter-archive to the wash of dime novels, government forms, envelopes, and church circulars printed for pennies on the dollar by prison labor.

„Whitney Trettien, Roberto Gonzalez: Data Frictions in the History of Prisons“ weiterlesen

Ashley Sanders: Redressing Colonial Knowledge Systems through Restorative Data Justice

While “data” is often understood today in computational terms, as information coded and organized for interpretation with digital tools and algorithms, the term has a long history dating back to at least the seventeenth century. In its earliest uses, data was defined as a “given” and a basis for decision-making—and thus power. A study of colonial knowledge systems offers numerous examples of the link between power and data regimes. Revealing the integral role of data in the building and maintenance of empires, this talk takes up several methodological questions: How do we handle colonial data, both data generated by colonial administrations and data we recreate from fragmentary sources to address the absences in the historical record born from conquest? And how do we ensure that our own research does not replicate imperial extractive colonial data practices?

„Ashley Sanders: Redressing Colonial Knowledge Systems through Restorative Data Justice“ weiterlesen