Dear all,

I have been thinking long and hard about this. I do not think we should have a vote yet on this matter (not now and not on December 1st) and here are the reasons:

My first question is why two non-equivalent things are being presented as options.

Alex and Roopika are proposing that we should leave ADHO. But we are only part of ADHO in that we are a Special Interest Group of the Alliance. There is nothing else to it. We have never been told by anyone what we can or cannot do. At some point, it meant that we could participate in the ADHO steering committee both online and in person. GO::DH, as other parties that are not Constituent Organizations (COs), did not have a vote. I find it difficult to see why being an SIG impairs our work or diminishes our aims. I agree with Alex that the vibrant work of the first days has paused but there can be many reasons for this. For example, in my case, I had taken a new post in 2014 which meant that my attention was focused on other matters (when GO:DH started, in January 2012, I was only working part time). It would be dishonest to say that because of ADHO I was behaving differently, it was because my life was different and I was under pressure on various fronts.

In Krakow some members of the executive talked to Harold Short and Ray Siemens about the possibility of GO::DH acquiring voting status. I never participated in such talks as I have never had the authority withing the group or the connections that would allow me to approach either Harold or Ray. There were rumors that, with the new ADHO structure and without changing our membership mode, we might receive some financial benefits from the Alliance. *I* thought that this money could be distributed within our community in various ways (paying for training, contributing with the costs of infrastructure, offering small grants). As you can see, this was all in my imagination. However, what Dan is proposing is that we explore the possibility of becoming a CO (as you have heard we will never have to pay membership fees). If we create a group to explore this and come back with a concrete proposal from ADHO, then we can discuss if we like it or not; if we are interested or not.

Those are concrete things. But concrete things have other implications, political and psychological. I am not that naïve as to not being able to recognize them. So we get to my second question: When I read this thread, I wonder as to the motives that ADHO might have to want GO::DH as a CO.

Before, Domenico (Hi, my friend! How are you doing?), outed me as someone who currently sits on the ADHO executive. I am there as the secretary of the European Association for Digital Humanities, EADH. I am giving these details for the sake of transparency (you can find them out if you Google them, but why waste your time?). It was not easy for me to get there and my primary role is to represent the interests of EADH. That said, when I am at the meetings, I cannot help but being the person I am, with the background I have, and often question things or make observations that take into account less privileged backgrounds. You cannot know this because the minutes, as accurate as they are, often do not reflect the force of my convictions (or the equally strong forces that oppose me). I am deeply aware that precisely because I am very vocal on matters of inequality and because I put a lot of my energy in the search for social justice, it was very difficult for my EADH colleagues to put me where I am. But I do not represent GO::DH at ADHO because that is not my role and I wonder how different the landscape would be if GO::DH had a couple of representatives with the right to speak and vote online and in real life.

Back to my previous point, why would ADHO want us there? Having experienced ADHO only under the direction of Karina Van Dalen-Oskam, I think that there is a true search for the removal of many of the systemic barriers that have been pointed out by Domenico so many times and more recently also by Gimena del Río. In Montreal, I was asked to lead a workshop on Collaboration and Diversity. This was the first time in the history of the conference that there was an ADHO sponsored workshop. It was full, people came from all over, but what surprised me the most was the high number of white men who attended. It was great to see people talking about these matters, learning things about themselves and wanting to take them back to their institutions. Dan (thank you for all your hard work!) and I felt that we were successful in reaching them. The next DH conference will be in Mexico City, marking the first time that the conference will happen outside its more traditional environments. Clearly things have changed. This is the bright side, of course. So what about the dark side?

I understand that there is a perspective that says that this is not enough, that ADHO is doing too little too late, that they are using GO::DH as an excuse not to face up their real systemic problems. I know why people think this. It is tiring to be the only person of color in the room, the only one with a non-standard background, the odd one out or simply the person that cannot make it to the conference because of lack of resources. It is also tiring to be used as a token to show how ADHO is not racist or sexist or ableist. I am deeply aware of this, but I want to believe that this is not the case that we are not being used as tokens, that real change is just beginning.

Unlike Dan, I am concerned with affecting ADHOs policies. Unlike Roopika and Alex, I still believe we can do that through GO::DH. In any case, I do not think that a vote should be called about "independence" (by the way, anyone who has studied rhetoric will see the deep bias and emotional charge in the use of such word), not now and not on the first of December. If we want to move back to a more project based GO::DH we should do it by action, not by vote. My proposed action is this, I would be ready to lead a group to talk to ADHO about under which conditions we *could* become a CO. This would be my project (as there would be other projects). When we have a concrete proposal, we can talk about it in this list as see whether is something that we might be interested in.

Before I finish, I want to leave you another note for reflection: this is the first time in which I write to this list and I do not feel safe in expressing my opinions.

BB

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