Senior Fellow in Research Area 5: "Building Digital Communities"

July 2025

Sustainable Futures for the Digital Humanities

As the Digital Humanities (DH) field evolves, sustainability emerges as a central concern—not only in terms of project longevity but also regarding social, technological and environmental responsibilities. Embracing open-source software and hardware offers a concrete path toward these sustainable futures. Open-source tools foster transparency, reduce dependency on commercial platforms and encourage collaborative development across institutions and borders. They help sustain communities of practice by lowering access barriers and enabling scholars worldwide to build, co-create, share and preserve knowledge.

Open scholarship and open-source infrastructures also align with principles of minimal computing, which emphasise building digital projects with the least possible technical and environmental cost. This approach champions tools that require low bandwidth and minimal energy consumption. It can also run on older or low-spec hardware. By questioning assumptions of constant innovation and high-performance computing, minimal computing practices support inclusive participation and ecological awareness within DH. Equally important is the use of open hardware platforms such as Raspberry Pi, which offer affordable and adaptable solutions for teaching, archiving and experimenting in DH contexts. Scholars and students can benefit from this approach.

Sustainability in the Digital Humanities, then, is not just about preservation—it is about values: openness, care, equity and resilience. By grounding our work in open, accessible and energy-conscious tools, we commit to a future where DH projects are not only technically sound but also socially and environmentally just.

Gimena del Rio Riande serves as an independent researcher at CONICET (Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas) in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Del Rio Riande is the director of the Laboratorio de Humanidades Digitales (HD LAB) at CONICET and has played a pivotal role in fostering open science and digital research infrastructures in the region. She is also a co-founder of the Asociación Argentina de Humanidades Digitales (AAHD). Her academic interests encompass digital scholarly editions, open research practices and the development of multilingual and inclusive DH methodologies. She is a member of the board of directors of the TEI Consortium and serves as a Latin American ambassador for the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), advocating for equitable scholarly communication. Del Rio Riande's work often emphasises the importance of minimal computing and sustainable digital practices, particularly within the context of the Global South. She has contributed to discussions on how DH can be more inclusive and environmentally conscious, challenging the dominance of Global North paradigms in the field. In addition to her research, she is Professor of Digital Humanities at Universidad del Salvador (USAL) and the director of the first postgraduate certificate in Digital Humanities in Argentina (UCES).