Category Archives: Assignments

Jean Fischer 9/2 blog post

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The Digital Humanities is an ever-flourishing field, filled with bountiful information, perspectives, focus, understandings, and justice that are accessible to a wide audience. It is a field created by the scholarly people, with technological advances and aid, for the citizens, who have access to technology, that are seeking new perspectives, information and aid. After reviewing the Torn Apart/ Separados site that focuses on the inhumane injustice, displacement, narratives, and resources for immigrant families affected by the U.S. Government’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement, it is clear that the Digital Humanities serve the online community as not only a provider of a multitude of incredible resources for humans that are impacted by human rights crimes but also the Digital Humanities serve as a teacher of empathy in which students can ascertain in depth research and connect in the creation of community, establishing support and ally ship. The Digital Humanities institute the human and social obligation to research, create, publish, teach and learn with a wide-scope of compassion towards many communities so that we can unite and incite progressive change in society.

The Torn Apart/ Separados Vol 2. gave an in depth look at the political, economic, and societal agenda of the social injustices performed by the U.S. Government’s ICE Program. Torn Apart/Separados, Vol. 2, provided a broken down outline emphasizing each sector of ICE’s reign into data visualizations, entitled: “Districts”, “Rain,” “Gain,” “Freezer,” and “Lines.” Each digital visualization gives research based information to clearly present factual data on the creation of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as well as the trickling effect of its power. The “Districts” data visualization provided a US dollar amount that each state contributed to ICE’S funding in addition to also providing each state’s representative. The “Rain,” data visualization shows what large financial corporations benefit from ICE. The “Gain” data visualization, also entitled, “The Scroll of Shame,” illustrates what companies and businesses benefit from endowment received from ICE. The “Freezer” data visualization breaks down the costs of each department in each ICE detainment facility- demonstrating astronomical number figures for inhuman services by the US Government. The “Lines” data visualization draws the captures and displacements of ICE’s victims, regionally.

As a provider, the Digital Humanities “represent a convergence of several sets of values, including those of the humanities; libraries, museums, and cultural heritage organizations; and networked culture,” referenced in Lisa Spiro’s chapter in “Introduction: The Digital Humanities Moment,” entitled, ‘“This Is Why We Fight”: Defining the Values of the Digital Humanities.’ Serving the digital community as this initiative-seeking oasis of community knowledge and outreach, the values that the Digital Humanities perpetuate are, “to advance knowledge, foster innovation, and serve the public” (“This is Why We Fight”: Defining the Values of Digital Humanities, Spiro.) ** With these values instilled in the foundation of Digital Humanities, these publications that are created to be used for public knowledge with correct research, open narratives, and an eye for change, in regards to the ever-changing future, are safe to be considered incredibly reliable sources of data information as the purpose to utilize them follow a deep moral code, ethical code, and social obligation to produce reliable, factual data information, not typically covered. These values that the Digital Humanities follow are fully demonstrated in The Torn Apart/ Separados Vol, 2. site, providing a spectrum of research, records, graphics, narratives, and hope for people to recognize the inhumanities carried out by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The Torn Apart/Separados Vol, 2. site also displays a digital data map pinning allied- organizations across the United States. These allied- organizations are meant to provide insurance for an audience who are in need of these resources as well as allies who want to share these resources to people who need this knowledge. The pinned allied- organizations include: Immigration Connection Project (ICON), in New York, El Refugio, in Georgia, Santa Fe Dreamers Project, in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and many others. These pins provide addresses; locations, contact information and a directory to ensure quality communication and ample resources to those who need them.

As a teacher of empathy, the Digital Humanities promote the pedagogical values of openness, collaboration, collegiality and connectedness, diversity, experimentation, mentioned in Lisa Spiro’s “Chapter 3:“This is Why We Fight:” Denying the Values of Digital Humanities, ’ in a universal curriculum. These values are not discriminatory and apply to the basic fundamental rights of human beings. As an educator of the Digital Humanities that works with text that are created for the mass education, it is a social code and obligation to create, educate and promote a supportive community that advocates an overall total ally-ship for communities whose voices are silenced and need provision. Demonstrated on The Torn Apart/ Separados, Vol, 2, the “Allies” section provides extensive contact data to allied organizations to help the victims of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement initiate. The action of creating this site, which is a valuable resource, and also focusing a section on specifically where people can find important allied-organizations’ contact information establishes that the Digital Humanities is made by humans for humans in need of help and to also teach, share and listen to researched narratives, that have been initially silenced by society, to ultimately learn and exhibit compassion for humankind.

9/2 Blog Post – Olivia M

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Using the project Torn Apart / Separados to (re)define Digital Humanities

The Digital Humanities is a field that centers on creating and disseminating collaborative, open sourced and interdisciplinary research projects that often adhere to a particular political agenda. Projects are digital in nature and almost always include pedagogical instructions and a description of methodology. In terms of the political effectiveness, DH believes that “small acts of recuperation” can create “building blocks to larger collective action.”

Torn Apart / Separados situates the Digital Humanities as a discipline using digital tools to (re)produce/(re)position the data informing and derived from current events/historical sources to inspire change and action. Here, the topic is ICE’s financial regime in the US, and an implicit call to action through “the data and visualization intervention… of culpability behind the humanitarian crisis of 2018.”

Digital Humanities is a discipline focused on exploring humanistic “data” -in this case both qualitative and quantitative- and creatively interprets and visualizes data from a broad range of sources and media types (institutional archives, public reporting, and social media posts are all examples of “data” for DH). DH is focused on translating a data set into a living “product” or visual/textual project that grows and updates alongside the evolution of the study and reporting on the topic in question. (Here, the project has two volumes, and both iterations remain visible online with details on the changes per volume.)

It’s also highly interdisciplinary — bringing together a range of professionals and types of reporting to enhance the spectrum of research methods utilized and types of data explored. These participants, practices and sources are also highly documented in a way that promotes further investigation into the topic at hand and the technology platforms themselves. In turn, the discipline inspires researchers and everyday people to consistently question traditional modes of information sharing and lean towards a methodology that is more relational and expands context across space and time.

DH projects inherently call into question the systems used to gather information for inquiry through their (re)positioning and (re)purposing of data. Here, they explicitly ask us to question the “truth” behind reporting and numbers released by governing bodies and major companies in regards to ICE funding and operations. As a result, a unique characteristic of the discipline is that it is inherently contradictory as it relies on the systems of information it seeks to dismantle and reposition (ICE records).

While “open access,” (aka available free/online) the discipline also seems restrictive to cultures and individuals who value numerical reporting and textual analysis over more subjective forms of knowledge and testimonial like oral history. However, this project is particularly visual and does appeal to individuals who might be more literate in data vis. Perhaps this is the shift from “humanities” to “digital” humanities? For instance, here, we are asked to examine and explore financial reporting, rather than the stories behind the individuals deported.

To what end? That’s up for debate, as DH projects call for others to step in and expand on the project as a way of keeping the “story” alive. In this project, there is no specific call to action other than a new addition to Volume 2 that highlights “Allies” in the fight to expose ICE. Transparency is clearly a major player in Digital Humanities, with the call to action being making information more widely accessible in a way that advances institutional critique, rather than promoting some specific IRL action towards change-making. That said, I look forward to discussing the ways in which this might succeed/fail with the class!