For a digital ecosophy: implementing the FAIR(e) principles

After a first edition in 2020-2021 dedicated to the "Constitution of research data" (EVEille Days 2021), the EVEille program will engage in a reflection, in 2021-2022, in favor of an "Ecosophy of the digital: implementing the FAIR(e) principles" or, to formulate it in a pragmatic and critical way, how to transform the "FAIR(e) principles" into "FAIR(e) practices", adding the "e" of ethic and ecological, thus "ecosophical".

According to Félix Guattari, "ecosophy" designates "the ethico-political articulation between the three ecological registers, that of the environment, that of social relations and that of human subjectivity" (Guattari, Les Trois écologies, Galilée, 1989, p. 12-13). As Yves Citton has reminded us, the ecosophical concern aims at "promoting new practices (of slowing down, of short circuits, of pooling knowledge and creativity, of shrinking, of new forms of production and consumption") that allow to "revalue the links linking us to each other as well as to our environment" (Citton, Pour une écologie de l'attention, Seuil, 2014, p. 156). By placing the notion of "ecosophy" at the heart of the reflection on Digital Humanities, this 5-day event would like to return to the foundations and ethical implications of the digital practice in the field of the Humanities, by examining the way in which the use of digital technologies affects our objects and methods of research. The FAIR precepts (that research data be "Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable") constitute an interesting anchor point for engaging in such a reflection, and for reexamining in practice the feasibility and the conditions of these precepts’ implementation.

If the use of computerized processes has, as in all other scientific disciplines, been primarily the result of an evolution of technical and methodological tools, it has also been accompanied by a transformation of research practices, of modes of apprehension of objects as well as of intellectual interactions within new communities, which affect the academic world as well as civil society. Ecosophy", or "wisdom of living", invites us to question these practices anchoring digital technologies within the field of Human and Social Sciences.

How are our research practices, whose singularities depend for the most part on epistemological and methodological legacies that date from the pre-digital era, being transformed with the development of new training, new software, and more broadly, new scientific cultures in the field of the Humanities? Does the use of these digital tools really produce a paradigm shift in the way we apprehend and explore our scientific objects? From another point of view, how do the institutional constraints, and in particular the forms of recruitment and project-based funding, which define new horizons for research, tend to inflect this role of "the digital", put forward as an argument of authority whose epistemological scope should no longer be questioned? Or, to reverse the perspective, through what uses, and therefore through what appropriations, can digital humanists redefine the modalities of a "digital making" that is above all "ecosophical", that is to say, based on a fully cooperative critical feedback, nourished by practices rather than precepts, in the service of the human being, considered in his complex relationships with the world?

If the aim here is to question the conditions of possibility for an "ecosophy of the digital", in its ethical stakes and its ecological implications, it is indeed from the angle of an "ecosophical making" that the question will be considered. How do digital humanists today, through their projects, attempt to "inhabit" the digital world? What imprints of their sensitivity, of their being-in-the-world, of their intersubjective relations do they deposit there? What collaborative practices do they deploy and what lasting inscription do they seek to develop? In short, on what values and with what tools and methods can the digital humanism of the years to come be built?

The 5 event days will be organized around three main recurring sessions that will progressively build an itinerary in this line of questioning.

Session 1 "Infrastructures" led by Giovanni Pietro Vitali

The reflection on the management and the use of data, in accordance with the FAIR principles (Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, Reuse) is structurally linked to the issue of the infrastructures through which these data are stored and manipulated.

The impression one gets when one analyzes the evolution of infrastructures in an international context is that the scientific and development community often moves forward in a random order. This situation undoubtedly over-complicates the task for all colleagues trying to structure projects using data in compliance with FAIR guidelines, as the creation of fragile infrastructures or those doomed to close down are missed opportunities in the sharing of human knowledge.

Considering the importance of infrastructures in the world of research, especially in digital humanities, we wish to propose a space for reflection and discussion on the issue of FAIR principles and infrastructures along three axes: values, situations and solutions. During these meetings, interviews with researchers from different international contexts will allow us to take stock of the creation and development of infrastructures for digital humanities.

Session 2 "Editorial Chain" led by Guillaume Porte

The "Editorial Chain" session will explore the process of creating structured digital editions from data acquisition to dissemination and (potential) reuse, based on a process underway at the Interuniversity Social Sciences and Humanities Research Institute - ALSACE (MISHA, according to its French acronym), which aims to offer researchers, doctoral students and students of Alsatian sites an editorial "pipeline" with variable geometry:

- an end-to-end chain, relatively generic, allowing the greatest number of people to produce structured, searchable, FAIR editions published in digital and/or paper format;

- multiple entry and exit points allowing more advanced projects to rely on a common infrastructure.

Inspired by existing clusters and initiatives, this pipeline also intends to ensure a certain technological economy by relying on systems and tools that are already well established. Designed on a regional scale in order to remain as close as possible to the publishers, this project, which is presented as background, hopes to encourage similar initiatives in other MSHs that do not yet benefit from this type of services.

Organized in the form of presentations or round tables, the discussions of this session will allow to evaluate the different steps, actors and tools necessary to the implementation of a project of this type. 

Session 3 "Methods and Tools" led by the OLIO group

OLIO (Free, Interoperable and Open Tools for research in the Humanities, according to the French acronym) is a group of various participants in digital humanities wishing to engage in a collective critical questioning of the use and constitution of digital tools and the way in which the choices and methods of realization of these tools conditions and shapes the scientific object. The OLIO group wants to federate:

- those who create the tools;

- those who design research and publication devices based on these tools applied to various objects (texts in various formats, images, sounds), whether they come from humanities research institutions (laboratories, MSH, doctoral schools), the world of libraries or culture (associations, museums, archives);

- the users of the digital objects produced: readers, the public, researchers, teachers, students, in order to include in the reflection an analysis of the uses made of them and the users’ real needs.

OLIO's activities include the analysis of uses and tools’ experimentation, the organization of scientific meetings, the publication and dissemination of data and developments, and the organization of workshops, training and any other means to accompany the practice and the handling of the different tools or research scenarios.

OLIO is currently led by Florian Barrière (MCF, Litt&Arts), Anne Garcia-Fernandez (IR, deputy director, Litt&Arts) and Richard Walter (IR, Thalim), with an administrative management run by the two abovementioned laboratories.

These three sessions may be complemented by other interventions by researchers, engineers, archivists, digital editors, project managers, interns, temporary workers, permanent staff, regular or occasional users, who wish to participate in this collective reflection. 

These independent interventions will allow us to progressively report on feedback from experiences, current projects, recent publications, in relation to the issues dealt with at the event days. Proposals must be submitted on the Sciencesconf EVEille 2022 website, at least one month before the day in question. 

The scheduled papers will be announced in the detailed programs of the days, which will gradually be posted on the Sciencesconf EVEille 2022 website.

The project EVEILLE aims at developing new digital practices within ILLE, complementary to the research work already undertaken, in order to reinforce the digital valorization of this work at the laboratory level and to develop new strategies of production and communication of the results of research in HSS. It is accompanied by events and exchanges conducted more widely within the scientific, heritage and cultural community of Digital Humanities. 

The EVEille project is led by Régine Battiston, director of the ILLE laboratory, Anne Réach-Ngô, senior lecturer at the FLSH, and Marine Parra, doctoral student at the ILLE. See the presentation of the project EVEille.

• Friday, January 21, 2022:  Day F as Findable
• Friday, February 11, 2022: Day A as Accessible
• Friday, March 11, 2022: Day I as Interoperable
• Friday April 8, 2022: Day R as Reusable
• Friday May 6, 2022: Day E as Ecosophical

Anne Réach-Ngô, Régine Battiston, Marine Parra : Projet-eveille@uha.fr

See the research blog of the event: https://eveille.hypotheses.org

Florian Barrière (Litt&Arts)
Régine Battiston (ILLE)
Anne Garcia-Fernandez (Litt&art)
Marine Parra (ILLE, Temos)
Guillaume Porte (ARCHE)
Romane Marlhoux (ILLE)
Anne Réach-Ngô (ILLE)
Benoît Roux (ERIAC)
Giovanni Pietro Vitali (DYPAC)
Richard Walter (THALIM)
Pierre Willaime (aHP)

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