The challenges and prospects of the intersection of humanities and data science: A White Paper from The Alan Turing Institute

• Since their beginnings, the digital humanities have engaged in an energetic debate about their scope, defining features, and relationship to the wider humanities, and have established themselves as a community of practice (Schreibman et al., 2004; Terras, 2010; Terras, 2013; Terras et al., 2013; Gold and Klein, 2016; The Digital Humanities Manifesto 2.0). The computational focus has characterised the field from its initial explorations (Hockey, 2004; Vanhoutte, 2013; Nyhan and Flinn, 2016) and the shift from the label ‘Humanities Computing’ to ‘Digital Humanities’ was a catalyst for change. In the history of the field, recurring cycles and productive tensions have arisen from the interfolding of computational methodologies and approaches with hermeneutic and critical modes of analysis (see McCarty, 2005; Rockwell and Sinclair, 2016; Jones, 2016). This document postulates that we are currently witnessing another one of these junctures, one that is calling for a critical involvement with data science. In many ways, we are seeing earlier methods blending into, or being extended by data science. Digitisation workflows are being augmented with automatic information extraction, data analysis, automated transcription of handwritten documents, and visualisation of transcribed content. Techniques developed for history, literary studies, and linguistics are being scaled towards larger datasets and more complex problems raising the bar of interpretability and questioning the validity of data collection and analysis methods. On the other hand, the field of data science has recently started to engage with non-STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) disciplines, by offering new data-driven modelling frameworks for addressing long-standing research questions (Kitchin, 2014; Lazer et al., 2009) and proposing so-called ‘human-centred approaches’ to data science, focussed on the interpretability of machine learning models and a more active role for human input in algorithms (See Chen et al., 2016). Moreover, in the current historical context we are witnessing an increased awareness of the questions of diversity and inclusion in research and academia, and we are seeing the creation of a strong movement aimed at addressing such issues globally. We believe that this paper can play a role in reinforcing a positive message in this respect.

Ämnesord

HUMANIORA  -- Annan humaniora (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Other Humanities (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

digital humanities

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