The readings of the past two weeks have defined digital humanities and outlined the ways this field can uphold or challenge colonialism and sexism through careful contextualization of data (Risam 2018), collaborative stewardship (Christen 2018), and critical reflection on the histories of constructed categories of data (Aronova et al. 2017; Noble 2018; Radin 2017). In Decolonizing the Digital Humanities in Theory and Practice, Risam warns of the risks of disingenuous decolonization efforts wherein collecting a diverse body of researchers is seen as the endpoint for decolonization in academia rather than the dismantling of colonial epistemologies and practices. This “add and stir” approach echoes colonialism in that researchers belonging to minority groups are either expected to conform to the structures of the academy and act as a figurehead for decolonization efforts or expected to transform a violent and oppressive system from the inside out with no support. The visibility of these researchers both within and outside academia exposes them to additional violence in an increasingly accessible digital world (Bailey and Gossett 2018). This violence is especially clear in Bailey’s section where contributors to the development and proliferation of the term misogynoir were removed from Wikipedia due to their lack of academic credentials or publications despite the fact that many of the individuals who edit Wikipedia lack these same qualifications. Fortunately, many of the authors have provided meaningful methodological changes in order to include and center knowledge originating outside academic institutions. Christen (2018) provided the most straightforward approach by outlining ETHICS, a series of steps for reflexive archival practices. Here, digital archives are created from communities’ stated needs with the power to modify, view, and change the digital record belonging to the people these data were taken from. In a similar vein, Risam (2018, p. 82) suggests that the emphasis on local “…demands acknowledgement that there is not a single world or way of being within the world but rather a proliferation of worlds, traditions, and forms of knowledge.” While these works provide methods to practice decolonization, rather than just speak to it, it is unclear to me if methods like ETHICS can effectively be used to decolonize “big data.”

The move to decolonize has been seen across multiple disciplines in the humanities with detrimental effects on researchers of color. Particularly in anthropology, which has a long legacy as an investigative tool of colonial powers, researchers of color are regularly expected to engage in integral decolonization work in addition to (and often in lieu of) the academic labor that departments use to measure progress. For example, Savannah Martin, a Siletz researcher (@SavvyOlogy on twitter), was criticized by her department for not meeting the writing benchmarks for her dissertation despite being an invited speaker on multiple panels for challenging colonial narratives in anthropology. Similarly, Shay-Akil McLean, a queer trans man (@Hood_Biologist on Twitter), who founded decolonizeallthethings.com and has been an invited speaker on multiple panels covering decolonization in anthropology, left anthropology for more supportive humanities departments after facing racial discrimination during his time as an anthropology PhD. While the move to decolonize theory and practice is excellent in digital humanities, I am unsure (as I am unfamiliar with the discipline) if these efforts have extended to department level initiatives to adamantly support the people actively challenging colonialism in academia.