Inside the Trading Zone: Thinkering in a Digital History Lab

Andreas Fickers, DTU-DHH project leader, and Tim van der Heijden, DTU- DHH Post-Doc researcher, recently published their co-written article entitled “Inside the Trading Zone: Thinkering in a Digital History Lab”. The article appeared in the Digital Humanities Quarterly (DHQ) journal as part of the Special Issue “Lab and Slack: Situated Research Practices in Digital Humanities”, edited by Mila Oiva and Urszula Pawlicka-Deger.

Floor map of the first floor of the “Maison des Sciences Humaines” (MSH) of the University of Luxembourg, including the Digital History Lab

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Abstract

The goal of this article is to critically reflect on the practical and epistemological challenges of doing historical research in the digital age. The analysis is based on a case study of the Doctoral Training Unit (DTU) “Digital History and Hermeneutics”, an interdisciplinary research and training programme that was established at the Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C²DH) of the University of Luxembourg. The DTU is designed as interdisciplinary trading zone that applies the method of “thinkering” – the tinkering with technology combined with the critical reflection on the practice of doing digital history. Based on this case study, the article addresses the question of how to constitute an interdisciplinary trading zone in practice and how to situate this trading zone in physical working environments, like a Digital History Lab and shared office space.

Article in full length

http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/14/3/000472/000472.html

 

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