This brief, invited “metareflection” identifies the most exciting questions in digital humanities and cultural heritage as those opened up by a potential redistribution of power and redesign of our social and technological infrastructure inspired by Black Studies, arts, and digital practice. What might it mean to shift from extractive and controlled modes of digital research and curation to ones that are generative, healing, and truly open-ended? What will happen if we succeed in empowering and centering individuals, collections, and community concerns that have long been marginalized? What might the DH community build next, if we make necessary changes in capital, focus, and control — and embrace the shaping role of the choices that each of us make within living systems every day?
Bethany Nowviskie (Fri,) studied this question.