As opposed to meeting people where they are, where people of color, women, people with disabilities are already engaged in digital projects, there’s a making of room at an already established table.
Moya Z. Bailey. “All the Digital Humanists Are White, All the Nerds Are Men, but Some of Us Are Brave.” in Journal of Digital Humanities (Vol. 1, No. 1 Winter 2011).
This quote caught my attention because there was something wrong with the imagery: if we must go around to meet with everyone involved, there wouldn’t be any knowledge centralization. Instead, “making room” is indeed the normal way groups are formed and expanded. Still, I understand the passage was about increasing inclusivity in an established group, not about how groups are formed. The quote implies newcomers would face troubles being accepted into the fold since ‘making of room’ indicates that the table was already full (but not packed tight). Furthermore, a large influx of people would leave it ill-advisedly cramped, in addition to the already established modus operandi of ignoring non-white males. Consequently, the newcomers would be disadvantaged right from the beginning.
This problem also applied to me since I have trouble joining groups and following their interests. Instead, I have only invited friends into my own group whose activities suited my interests. This means I understand both sides of the quote: the awkward new member and the member of the “table.” Nowadays, my interest (and future plan) is to pursue a major in Computer Science. I hope to discover new ways to integrate technology to assist people in their life, which is covered in the Digital Humanities field. It also links back to the problem of inclusivity since I am an Asian: a newcomer to the table both ethnic-wise and experience-wise.
Currently, among the Digital Humanities fields, I am currently interested in ”Scale: The Law of Large Numbers”, “Distant/Close, Macro/Micro, Surface/Depth”, “Cultural Analytics, Aggregation, and Data-Mining”, “Visualization and Data Design” and “Humanities Gaming”. This is because I would like to improve people’s awareness about our shared humanity, promoting cooperation through understanding, removing discrimination and most importantly, helping others to become the best that they can be. In the end, I hope that the combination of my goals would allow for a self-perpetuated, global-spanning cycle of self-improvement, helping others to develop to their best, who help even more people and repeat.
