“To characterize what I do as “making” is either to mistake the methods — the research, the editorials, the workshops, the courses — for the purpose or, worse, to describe what I do as “making” other people, diminishing their own agency and role in sensemaking, as if their learning is something I impose on them.”
Debbie Chachra, “Beyond Making,” in Making Things and Drawing Boundaries: Experiments in the Digital Humanities, ed. Jentry Sayers, Debates in the Digital Humanities (University of Minnesota Press, 2017).
This chapter addresses a perspective I think is very important when defining Digital Humanities and understanding the value of each step in creating a piece of media. When I think of a “maker” I immediately envision authors, artists, or inventors. In a society that values original thought, we give disproportionate credit to the name with the largest font on the front page or the individual with the most charisma. However, we often overlook the several dozens or even hundreds of people who supported them.
Digital humanities as defined by Burdick and her co-authors emphasizes collaboration, demonstrating the importance of people with specialized skills working together. Creation in an interdisciplinary field is rarely a solo project as many digital humanities projects rely on a foundation of curation, analysis, editing, and modeling.
As someone who enjoys “making” things, I would not be where I am now if not for the educators and peers who taught, critiqued, and analyzed my work. Even in regards to coding, my original code always gets overwritten with better style and working parts with the help of my peers. Roles like teaching and analyzing, which Chachra highlights, are frequently undervalued in society. While I’m unsure for how society can better appreciate the underrepresented contributors, I’m inspired by the potential of Digital Humanities to redefine what it means to be a “maker”.
Under the large umbrella of Digital Art and Humanities, I am most eager to learn about data visualization and develop skills in collaborative team environments. As someone who has a hard time understanding numbers and how they correlate to other datasets, I believe generating meaningful representations of data is valuable for learning and sharing dense information. Working in a group is also something I find value in, as the contribution of diverse thoughts and ideas is what I believe separates a good project from a great one.
