Paper short abstract:

This paper compares current initiatives to build digital infrastructure for the humanities in Europe and the US. Conceptually, I propose that infrastructure functions as a regulatory technology, i.e. an interface through which the actor groups in a science system rearticulate their mutual relations.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper I provide a comparative perspective on current initiatives to build digital infrastructure for the humanities in Europe and the US. Thereby I mean to move beyond analyzing the shaping of technology within individual projects and instead trace in a more encompassing way how dominant research policies mediate the reorganization of disciplinary tool development. Drawing conceptual inspiration from the work of Sheila Jasanoff, I propose that infrastructure actually functions as a regulatory technology, i.e. as an interface through which the different actor groups in a public science system rearticulate their mutual relations. US digital scholars, I argue, have successfully promoted a sociotechnical view of infrastructure as an emergent, evolutionary phenomenon, according to which conceptual and managerial authority should be situated at well-established digital humanities centers. While avoiding problems related to the implementation of technology in more traditional scholarly practices, this arrangement will tend to privilege the intellectual and technological preferences of existing elites within digital humanities over those of other research communities. European initiatives by contrast are based on a more centralizing, technology-driven vision of digital infrastructure that serves the European Commission's policy goal of integrating national research systems. This causes a certain disconnect between tool developers and prospective scholarly users who are often unfamiliar with digital approaches, but the emphasis on central coordination also ensures that no single community gains exclusive control over technology development.