Lecture series: Megan Gooch

Failure to connect: exploring the human relationships at the heart of digital humanities

Digital humanities means many things to many people – we talk of DH as being a range of methods, technologies, theoretical approaches to ask and answer research questions. But unlike traditional forms of humanities research, the research projects is not often one that can be tackled alone. DH nearly always requires collaboration with people from different subject domains, with technical experts and often with non-academic staff such as librarians, museum staff or administrative support.

This paper explores the impact of this growth in collaboration through the lens of failure and what happens when collaborations and partnerships don’t go as planned. We have all experienced failure in our professional lives, but it is rarely acknowledged due to risks to reputation or to future funding. But by exploring what can go wrong, we can identify some of the key collaborative skills needed by today’s digital humanists, and begin to understand how to equip the researchers of the future to thrive.