Nabeel Siddiqui

The digital humanities has positioned itself as a field committed to open- ness, collaboration and the democratisation of knowledge. This vision suggests a borderless academic community where scholars freely exchange ideas across institutional, national and cultural boundaries. Academic conferences, as the field’s primary sites of knowledge exchange and community building, are meant to embody these values. For instance, in 2011, the annual Digital Humanities Conference chose ‘Big Tent Digital Humanities’ as its theme. This metaphor was meant to suggest an aspiration of inclusivity where diverse perspectives would be welcomed and actively cultivated, traditional academic hierarchies would be flattened, and global participation would be the norm rather than the exception.

However, despite these aspirations for inclusivity, practitioners increasingly challenge this characterisation, arguing that DH has reproduced and sometimes amplified existing inequities in academic and social hierarchies (Svensson 2012). For example, studies have shown that DH contains a concentration of male scholars and a ‘monoculture’ of English (Fiormonte 2014; Galina Russell 2014). Likewise, postcolonial scholars note that attempts to map or highlight DH activities often privilege those with institutional support, such as centres and research labs, while leaving out much of the ‘informal’ DH of the Global South. I argue that these broader inequities manifest prominently in how digital humanities conferences operate and exemplify what I term a ‘geographical failure’ – the systematic way in which physical distance, location and territorial boundaries have created barriers to sites of knowledge production. These failures are not merely logistical challenges to be solved through better planning or increased funding. Instead, they represent fundamental structural inequities determining whose definition of ‘digital humanities’ gains traction.

Conferences can serve as microcosms of broader academic culture, reflecting prevailing norms and expectations that shape researchers’ experiences and aspirations. Emily Henderson argues that conferences are phenomena that are simultaneously under-researched and over-experienced (Henderson 2015). While formal studies on the emotional and physical experiences of conference attendance are scarce, most academics are familiar with the demands and challenges of participation. Emma Bell and Daniel King (2010) liken presenting at a conference to an endurance test where attendees battle headaches, lack of sleep and dehydration to finally add that coveted next line to their CV. Limited access to these production sites can significantly hinder an individual’s academic career advancement. In an increasingly neoliberal academic landscape, they play a vital role in establishing professional connections, disseminating research findings and increasing visibility (Nicolson 2017; Rowe 2018; Wang et al. 2017).

In digital humanities, this gatekeeping function is mainly concentrated through the Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations (ADHO). As Roopika Risam (2017) notes,

While digital humanities (DH) scholarship exists outside the purview of ADHO, the annual conference, the regional reach of the constituent organisations, and the number of important DH publications affiliated with it … gives ADHO and its constituent organisations significant influence over DH at the global scale.

Consequently, studying ADHO conferences can serve as a proxy for understanding DH’s broader landscape.

Most ADHO conferences are in North America or Europe, which can be challenging for academics from other regions due to the long distance required to travel. Furthermore, scholars from the Global South may face hurdles in obtaining visas to enter countries where conferences are held, a complex and sometimes even unsuccessful process. Conference participation costs, like airfare, lodging and registration fees, can be prohibitively high, especially for scholars without institutional backing or dedicated funding for professional development. This barrier is particularly acute for early-career researchers, independent scholars and those from under-resourced institutions, who may lack access to the same level of support as their more privileged colleagues. Finally, because conferences require that attendees break from daily duties, women, who continue to bear the brunt of domestic responsibilities, are disproportionately prohibited from attending (Henderson and Moreau 2020).

To expose the hidden geography of power in digital humanities, I created an interactive visualisation mapping sixty years of travel patterns to ADHO conferences. This project reveals who attends these gatherings and who faces systematic exclusion due to distance barriers. My analysis builds on the comprehensive Index of DH Conferences developed by Lincoln, Weingart, and Eichmann-Kalwara (2021) – a database tracking over 500 events, 8,800 presentations, and 10,400 authors across multiple countries. While their initial analysis confirmed DH’s lack of regional and gender diversity, my visualisation adds a crucial spatial dimension: by mapping the actual distances scholars must traverse, it makes visible the physical barriers that shape intellectual exchange in the field (Weingart and Eichmann-Kalwara 2017).

To create the timelapse map, I reverse-geocoded the institutional affiliations of authors in the dataset and the conference hosting institutions using the ArcGIS API. When university affiliation was missing, I used the city or country of the presenter. This method has limitations, since some individuals might submit papers from non-university affiliations, change affiliations or not live near their listed affiliation, particularly affecting marginalised scholars or those without institutional support. However, this provided a valuable method to chart travel patterns in most instances. With this data, I built a layered GIS map of the global mobility of DH conference attendees in FourSquare Studio, using data from the Index of DH Conferences until July 2024.¹

The travel pattern data exposes geographic imbalance and a self-reinforcing cycle where conference locations systematically amplify existing power structures. Most conference-goers are from North America, Europe and Australia; only a few scholars are from other regions. This imbalance is stark compared to the global distribution of digital humanities activities, which are more evenly spread worldwide (Gil 2014). Perhaps most importantly, the map reveals the impact of hosting location on conference attendance, with major cities and research hubs attracting disproportionate participants. For instance, Digital Humanities 2018 in Mexico City (represented in Figure 20.1) attracted a much more diverse group of participants than in other years, with a significant number from Latin America and other regions outside North America and Europe. However, this remains an exception, with most continuing to be held in the Global North.

A histogram of the haversine distance travelled by conference participants further illustrates the stark disparities in access and the importance of conference location in shaping attendance (see Figure 20.2). Most attendees travel less than 1,000 kilometres, suggesting proximity to the conference is critical in determining who can participate. Only a minority of scholars traverse distances exceeding 10,000 kilometres, many of which are from the Global North.

To address these geographical failures – including the concentration of conferences in the Global North, prohibitive travel costs, visa restrictions and care responsibilities that limit mobility – the DH community must take concrete steps to decentralise conference locations and explore alternative modes of participation. Drawing from successful examples like DH2018 in Mexico City, which demonstrated how strategic location choice can dramatically diversify participation, a key priority should be geographic redistribution through a rotating conference system that ensures regular events in the Global South. This should be coupled with establishing regional hubs for smaller, more frequent gatherings, supported by partnerships with local institutions to build hosting capacity. Alongside this physical restructuring, the field must develop robust financial support mechanisms, including dedicated funding streams for scholars from under-resourced institutions and sliding scale registration fees based on country of origin.

Finally, the DH community should embrace virtual conferences and regional events complementary to traditional in-person gatherings. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the potential of online platforms to facilitate global participation and reduce the barriers associated with physical travel. However, more research is needed to fully understand the impact and effectiveness of virtual conferences in fostering inclusivity and diversity within the field. As the DH community explores these alternative modes of engagement, critically examining their potential benefits and limitations is crucial. This examination should focus on ensuring that virtual conferences and regional events genuinely contribute to creating a more accessible and equitable ‘Big Tent’ that reflects the diversity of digital humanities scholarship and practice worldwide. By doing so, the field can move towards a more inclusive and representative future, where knowledge production and exchange are not as limited by territorial demarcations or institutional affiliations.