Data Feminism and Postcolonial DH
Data and digital archives are not found objects; they reflect who had the power to record, classify, and preserve. Feminist and postcolonial digital humanities expose these inequities and build methods and archives that center marginalized knowledge and voices.
Definition
Approaches in the digital humanities that draw on feminist, anti-racist, and postcolonial theory to analyze and counter the power relations embedded in data, archives, and digital methods, and to center marginalized knowledge.
Scope
Covers feminist, anti-racist, and postcolonial approaches in the digital humanities: principles of data feminism, postcolonial and Black digital humanities, and the politics of archives, classification, and representation. Includes both critique of bias in data and infrastructure and constructive practices for inclusive, justice-oriented scholarship.
Core questions
- How do power and inequity shape what data and archives exist?
- Whose perspectives are missing from digital collections, and why?
- How can data practices be made more just and accountable?
- What would a decolonized digital humanities look like?
Key concepts
- Power and data
- Archival silence
- Decolonization
- Intersectionality
- Representation
Key theories
- Data feminism
- D'Ignazio and Klein set out principles — examine power, challenge it, elevate emotion and embodiment, make labor visible — for analyzing and creating data in ways that confront inequity.
- Postcolonial digital humanities
- Risam argued that the digital humanities must reckon with colonial legacies in archives and methods, building global and inclusive digital worlds.
- Black digital humanities
- Gallon argued that digital humanities can recover and assert the humanity denied by archival and technological systems shaped by racism.
History
Feminist and postcolonial critique entered the digital humanities through the 2010s, building on broader theory. Gallon (2016) made the case for Black digital humanities, Risam (2018) for postcolonial digital humanities, and D'Ignazio and Klein (2020) synthesized data feminism, together establishing a justice-oriented strand of the field.
Debates
- Inclusion through repair versus refusal
- Whether marginalized histories are best served by filling archival gaps with new data or by refusing extractive data practices and protecting community sovereignty.
Key figures
- Catherine D'Ignazio
- Lauren Klein
- Roopika Risam
- Kim Gallon
Related topics
Seminal works
- dignazio2020
- risam2018
- gallon2016
Frequently asked questions
- How can data be feminist or postcolonial?
- Data is produced by people and institutions with particular interests and blind spots, so what gets recorded and how it is classified reflects power. Feminist and postcolonial approaches make those dynamics visible and build data and archival practices that center marginalized knowledge and accountability.