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Un recorrido por las Humanidades Digitales

Translation: Jon Alkorta Martiartu, PhD (UPV/EHU)

A Journey through Digital Humanities

Arantxa Serantes, PhD., works in the field of Digital Humanities, Technoethics, Infoethics and Thick Data. Her experience is mainly focused on research and teaching, although she is always in constant training and improvement, especially in the technological field. Efficiency is based on excellence and that is why she puts long life learning into practice. For this reason, she is always open to collaborating on new projects and ideas, which is why we have decided to interview her.

Pedro Ortega: The field in which you develop your professional work is Digital Humanities, how could we define this term and what disciplines does it encompass?

Arantxa Serantes, PhD: I am currently involved in university teaching and research and it is curious to see how this discipline is evolving. What started out as Humanistic Informatics has now become Digital Humanities, which aims to encompass Futures studies and Science Matters, both terms referring to hybrid studies and common questions (humanistic and scientific) that have evolved from the sciences to become a new object of study.

OP: Perhaps the concept of digital humanities will overthrow the old-style arts and sciences education. What subjects should a student who wants to develop their studies in Digital Humanities be familiar with?

 There is a dual methodological approach. Either it goes deeper into basic science and leads to applied science, through the use of software and digital tools, or it is digitally native, i.e. it delves into those areas that come from the technological revolution, such as data analysis, programming, etc. The subjects can be of various kinds, but they have a STEAM (not STEM) focus. I emphasise this point because STEAM is the acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics (and the Arts include the Digital Humanities). STEM is often used in our language, but originally it is not. So there are many options, depending on the education system, but some of them would be web technologies and markup languages, text analysis and stylometry, or data visualisation, among others.

Arantxa Serantes, PhD. Picture: Manuel Gutiérrez Gómez.

PO: In an era where technology is advancing so fast, and with it the digital humanities, aren’t university degrees at risk of becoming outdated? Isn’t there a need for continuous training with certifications that have to be renewed from time to time in order not to fall behind? I am thinking, for example, of Google tools, for the official use of which you have to take regular exams. In one of your articles, you talk about Geohumanities, could you define the term and tell us what the purpose of this discipline is?

 AS: University is starting to gain prominence, because technology is advancing at an exponential rate and there is a great demand for continuous training and specialisation that it has to take advantage of. In the case of tools, I think an update is necessary, as certification can become obsolete, because knowledge in this field is of a pragmatic nature.

Geohumanities were born out of the need to identify in a geographical space a series of social and cultural realities that we could not visualise in any other way. Hence, thematic and storytelling maps have had a great growth in the field of journalism (geojournalism) and social anthropology; because they are able to collect a lot of information in one or several layers thanks to the legends or their interactivity through timelines.

 PO: I work with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and if we cross geographic information with Big Data we definitely have an enormous potential to know and examine variables with their location in the territory. Have you carried out any work with this type of tool?

AS: Yes, I carried it out with a collaborative tool called Emapic, a constantly evolving API, which allowed me to generate geo-surveys and obtain data related to citizen participation and its possible practical application in the social and political sphere (participatory budgeting). The truth is that the data I obtained, combined with other tools, helped me to see the impact of emotions and the weight of keywords when making positive or negative evaluations according to an expected result. This is why I find Thick Data much more appealing than large-scale data, which is much more difficult to sieve and does not have such an impact on the daily lives of social agents.

PO: I also wanted to ask you about citizen science. What does this concept mean? In your work you also talk about the loss of the human factor in favour of technology. This is where algorithms and artificial intelligence come into play, and it seems that they are going to restrict human freedom. What reflections can we draw from this situation?

AS: Citizen science has also a technological component (crowdsourcing) in which citizens can collaborate with simple but very necessary tasks to achieve a certain result in an academic research project through a gamified experience. This contribution could mean a before and after in research as we know it and it would be like a great neural network in which citizens and academia work together for the common good.

PO: Finally, I wanted to ask you a question about the Metaverse that I am asking all my interviewees. What is your perspective on the development of this pseudo-reality that is in full development? Do you think it is necessary that within this field there be a space for the free use of the Metaverse dedicated to Cultural Heritage?

AS: The Metaverse can be a big business or a transformation of reality in which space will be three-dimensional and virtual. The creative freedom and possibilities are immense but there is a loss of identity and a co-dependence on electronic devices that can be detrimental. We must not lose sight of reality and social inequality. The Metaverse should not become an escape and certain rules of the game must be set.

The same thing happened with the Internet. It could have had a bigger cultural and social component, but business has prevailed. In fact, netart was born as a form of protest against the commercialisation of the Internet in favour of a cyberculture. Nobody says that the Metaverse can be unique or that it has no possible replicas. It all depends on the storage requirements and the proliferation of data, as it may be the biggest source of Big Data so far.

PO: Would you like to add anything else?

AS: I believe that technoethics and infoethics will have a very important role to play when it comes to valuing technological innovation and, with the help of the law, we will be able to assess the risks.  I am very interested in this area, because the treatment of information, digital rights and respect for the human component must remain above all marketing.

PO: Many thanks for your answers.

Dr. Pedro Ortega

Ingeniero Industrial, Historiador del Arte, Máster en Edición Digital y Doctor en Estética. Es Gestor Cultural de Patrimonio Mundial del Ayuntamiento de Madrid. Edita la revista académica Herejía y Belleza y dirige el sello académico Ediciones Aulós. Es autor en Penguin Random House y ha escrito artículos para El Imparcial, Jot Down e Historia National Geographic, entre otros medios. Pedro Ortega PhD Industrial Engineer, Art Historian, with a M.A. in Digital Publishing and a PhD in Aesthetics. He is the cultural manager at the World Heritage Service of the Madrid City Council. He is a published author at Penguin Random House and has written articles for El Imparcial, Jot Down and Historia National Geographic, among others. Pedro Ortega doktorea Industria Ingeniaria, Artearen Historialaria, Edizio Digitaleko Master-duna eta Estetikan Doktorea. Kultur kudeatzailea da Madrilgo Udaleko Munduko Ondare Zerbitzuan. Penguin Random House-ko idazlea da eta artikuluak idatzi ditu El Imparcial, Jot Down eta Historia National Geographic-entzat, besteak beste.

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OpenEdition le sugiere que cite este post de la siguiente manera:
Dr. Pedro Ortega (10 de febrero de 2023). Un recorrido por las Humanidades Digitales. El blog de Tartalo. Recuperado 19 de marzo de 2025 de https://doi.org/10.58079/unvh


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