Of course DH issues are "small" in comparison to the problems of the Internet, but you can't avoid speaking of power (and resources) when dealing with structured organizations (including scholarly ones). The fact I can spend less than 1000 euros each *year* for all my research/travelling/ expenses or that our someone from Cuba have no research money at all cannot be ignored. "Where" and "what" often coincide. And who benefits from the present unbalance is also clear. Please let's be honest about this -- "as a first step".

So, once again, the problem of governance/policymaking boils down to a problem of unevenly distributed resources which in turns produce undemocratic practices. Linguistic and cultural dominance through English language is not a mere or neutral instrument of this unbalance. I will return to this problem in a separate post as a response to Gregory Crane's article on "Big Humanities and DH in Germany", but in answering Øyvind's observations I'd like to say that the price paid to the dissemination of our ideas cannot lead to the extinction of less profitable languages and cultures. What we should do is much simpler and has been done for centuries: let's translate! I prefer the risk of being misunderstood in translation than the risk of seeing disappearing the need for translation.

I've found these words referred to the famous work of African writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o:

"This is the dilemma of the African writer today: either he may use a European language and thus gain recognition (and financial reward) from a worldwide audience, but at the risk of cutting himself off from the very roots of all but the most esoteric creative flowering, the common experience of his own society; or he may use his own mother tongue, stoically shun the appeal of the world market, remain one of the inglorious Miltons of the present age, but help his own people’s advance into the age of mass literacy and pave the way for future achievements and renown."