Intersectional feminist revolutions in digital humanities: approaches, histories, and methods (panel)

How has, and how can, intersectional feminist methods, praxis, and theories shape digital humanities? How can we, as a digital humanities community, embrace and embed feminist thinking into our everyday work practices and in the projects we develop and collaborate on? What tools and methods do we need to create more inclusive and socially aware technological infrastructures, systems, and code? These are the questions being asked by ‘Full Stack Feminism in Digital Humanities’ (FSFDH), a two-year project funded jointly by UK and Irish research councils. Full Stack Feminism (FSF) is akin to Tara McPherson’s (2018:27) approach and examination of ‘designing for difference’. This includes thinking about and responding to feminist concerns, but also, as Alan Liu (McPherson 2018:28) states, to the ‘full register of society, economics, politics, and culture’. FSF is a trans, inter disciplinary research project which develops an intersectional feminist framework for digital arts and humanities (DH) practice and research.  The ‘Full Stack’ metaphor accounts for a commitment to review and critique all stages of the development and data life cycle – from design to implementation, from the processes of datafication to dissemination, critiquing every stack from the code right through the infrastructure layers above. This panel reflects upon the feminist revolution in digital humanities and of the feminist foundations in DH upon which the project is built. Digital humanities (DH) have a history of challenging the status quo and of embracing alternative means of knowledge production. As such, the panel explores how intersectional feminism methods and praxis can help to develop a more open, and inclusive, DH. The opportunity for collaboration in this space is vast and beneficiaries broad. This panel, and the project discussed, is therefore a response to the varied calls within DH for more inclusive practices, with broader community engagement across intersectional lines of identity politics. It explores how feminist epistemology, praxis and methods can contribute to shaping DH as an intellectual field which responds to structural inequalities within and beyond its boundaries The panel is comprised of members of the FSFDH team and explores the various ways in which the research project collaborates across academic disciplines and different communities of interest. We provide a broad overview of the project and its activities as well as more detailed analysis of feminist approaches to practice-based research methodologies, interview collation, listening, and storytelling, that arise out of our investigations. The panel will explore elements of our FSF framework, which consists of three stacks: (1) data and archives; (2) infrastructure, tools and code; and (3) dissemination, integration and access - specifically explored through Webb, Chevalier and Naji’s contributions. From this foundation panel members, Fubara-Manuel and Fox, discuss feminist methodologies and praxis such as critical (con)fabulation and story-telling, both methods of decentrying and narratorial recreation or empowerment. Lastly, given the central role of critical digital arts practice within the project, the panel concludes with Hill’s reflections on the curatorial role in remaking, or revisioning future heritage.