Digital History and the Politics of Digitization

This paper will present the first findings of an ongoing research project. It is about the digital resources we work with as historians; in the first place with regard to what is being digitized, the sources and data, and to a lesser degree the metadata, notwithstanding the latter’s profound political aspects and effects, e.g. with regard to access. To avoid misunderstandings: it is not about the politics of digital humanities more broadly conceived; e.g. about addressing claims that it is incumbent upon DH to fulfil a political mission or become a more self-critical discipline by consciously investigating its own gender, diversity and other biases.