As I was reading, Reflections on a Movement, I realized that I really connected with it! A lot of my frustrations with DH were being addresses and talked about! I really appreciate #transformDH, for what it has done and what it can do. I think it is important for all people to be aware of hierarchies and how they affect the work that we create and the production of knowledge. The values that Moya Bailey, Anne Cong-Huyen, Alexis Lothian and Amanda Phillips are really important values:
“1. Questions of race, class, gender, sexuality, and disability should be central to digital humanities and digital media studies.
2. Feminist, queer, and antiracist activists, artists, and media-makers outside of academia are doing work that contributes to digital studies in all its forms. This work productively destabilizes the norms and standards of institutionally recognized academic work.
3. We should shift the focus of digital humanities from technical processes to political ones, and always seek to understand the social, intellectual, economic, political, and personal impact of our digital practices as we develop them.”
I believe that every movement should embrace the values like the ones above. The world would be a much better place if these issues were addressed in all walks of life.
By making DH more inclusive not only will more people be able to interact with digital projects, but more people will be able to be part of the DH community. I believe that the more diverse a community is the better it is. It can more easily meet the needs of others, help to educate those in the community and address the bias in some forms of scholarship.
I didn’t realize how powerful hashtags could be. I knew of #OccupyWallStreet and #BlackLivesMatter but I didn’t realize the extent to which that hashtags can literally support/ create movements and be used by activists. I think it is really cool that no one can own a hashtag. Although that might be a little scary, because they are not owned they are open and anyone can share their beliefs with a hashtag. All opinions might not be taken seriously, but they are all documented if the same hashtag is used. Hashtags can empower people to change the direction of a movement by having their voice heard by everyone that uses it.
Before this summer I did not have a lot of respect of Twitter and I did not like using it. Although I may not use it in my everyday life, I think it is extremely beneficial to connect communities, especially DH communities. I am very excited to start using #transformDH.
The most important values of DH are openness and accessibly and I believe #tranformDH should be given credit for helping to create that.
