JDHASA Journal – Digital Humanities Association of Southern Africa

About the Journal

The Journal of the Digital Humanities Association of Southern Africa (DHASA), ISSN 3006-6492, is a peer-reviewed open-access journal of DHASA. The DHASA Journal is an important initiative aimed at making the research output of our members and other interested scholars publicly available.

Our journal welcomes all scholarly reflections within the broader gambit of the Global South, meaning we not only encourage contributions from the geographical location of Southern Africa but also those viewpoints that represent the issues and concerns of digital humanities from this regional and idea sphere.

Our scope includes computational linguistics, human language technologies and literary studies, digital arts, and media. Technology criticism, digital library studies, information, and archive studies, are some of the major fields. The list is by no means exhaustive.

Since its foundation in 2016, DHASA has become the official network of digital humanities scholars in Southern Africa. DHASA members come from a wide variety of fields in the humanities, social sciences, and computer sciences.

One of our key goals is to develop a ‘methodological commons’, “providing guidance in the development of standards and expertise to promote best practices in digital humanities teaching and research.” Another aim is to create a much-needed dialogue and critical reflection on digital humanities teaching and research to provide a voice and channel for debates on pertinent issues.

The journal is published yearly, where the proceedings of the bi-annual DHASA conference are published in the odd-numbered years (e.g. DHASA2023) and special thematic issues appear in the even-numbered years.

JDHASA has adopted a new publication schedule, ensuring a minimum of two regular issues per year. The journal aims to expedite the dissemination of scholarly articles, and as soon as the rigorous review process is completed, accepted articles will be promptly published. To enhance the accessibility and identification of published works, each article will receive a unique Digital Object Identifier (DOI). The journal will adhere to specific cut-off dates for each issue: the 30th of June for the first issue of the year and the 31st of December for the second issue. Furthermore, JDHASA also periodically announces calls for special issues, providing researchers with the opportunity to contribute to themed editions or address emerging topics within the field.

Previous Issues and Proceedings

Volume 5, issue 1. Digital humanities for inclusion

DOI: https://doi.org/10.55492/dhasa.v5i1

Published: 2024-02-19

Volume 4, issue 2. special issue: crossroads digital humanities

DOI: https://doi.org/10.55492/dhasa.v4i02

Published: 2023-03-03

Volume 4, issue 1. proceedings of the 3rd workshop on resources for african indigenous languages (rail)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.55492/dhasa.v4i01

Published: 2023-02-07

Volume 3, issue 2. proceedings of the 2nd workshop on resources for african indigenous languages (rail) at DHASA

The South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR) is organising the second RAIL workshop in the field of African Indigenous Language Resources. This workshop aims to bring together researchers who are interested in showcasing their research and thereby boosting the field of African indigenous languages. This provides an overview of the current state-of-the-art and emphasises availability of African indigenous language resources, including both data and tools. Additionally, it will allow for information sharing among researchers interested in African indigenous languages and also start discussions on improving the quality and availability of the resources. Many African indigenous languages currently have no or very limited resources available and, additionally, they are often structurally quite different from more well-resourced languages, requiring the development and use of specialized techniques. By bringing together researchers from different fields (e.g., (computational) linguistics, sociolinguistics, language technology) to discuss the development of language resources for African indigenous languages, we hope to boost research in this field.

The Resources for African Indigenous Languages (RAIL) workshop is an interdisciplinary platform for researchers working on resources (data collections, tools, etc.) specifically targeted towards African indigenous languages. It aims to create the conditions for the emergence of a scientific community of practice that focuses on data, as well as tools, specifically designed for or applied to indigenous languages found in Africa.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.55492/dhasa.v3i03

Published: 2022-02-24

volume 3, issue 1. Proceedings of the International Conference of the (DHASA) 2021

The Digital Humanities Association of Southern Africa (DHASA) organized its third conference with the theme “Digitally Human, Artificially Intelligent”. The field of Digital Humanities is currently still rather underdeveloped in Southern Africa. Hence, this conference has several aims. First, to bring together researchers who are interested in showcasing their research from the broad field of Digital Humanities. By doing so, this conference provides an overview of the current state-of-the-art of Digital Humanities, especially in the Southern Africa region. This includes Digital Humanities research by people from Southern Africa or research related to the geographical area of Southern Africa.

Second, the conference allows for information sharing among researchers interested in Digital Humanities as well as network building. By bringing together researchers working on Digital Humanities from Southern Africa or on Southern Africa, we hope to boost collaboration and research in this field.

Third, affiliated workshops and tutorials provide information for researchers to learn about novel technologies and tools. These related events are aimed at researchers interested in the field of Digital Humanities, to focus on specific aspects of Digital Humanities or to provide practical information for researchers to move into the field or advance their knowledge in the field.

Here is a link to the proceedings of the DHASA 2021 conference: https://upjournals.up.ac.za/index.php/dhasa/issue/view/284/27

volume 2, issue 1. proceedings of the International Conference of the DHASA 2019

The 2nd International Conference of the Digital Humanities Association of Southern Africa (DHASA) with a focus on African Digital Humanities took place from 25 – 29 March 2019 at the University of Pretoria.

The intention of DHASA 2019 is to bring together both National and Internationals scholars in the DH domain covering applicable topics in the Humanities and Social Sciences arenas. The focus was on DH within the African and Southern African contexts, as well as on any topic related to methodological or computational aspects in DH.

Topics included, but were not restricted to:
Language, Literature, Visual Art, Performance / Theatre Studies, Media Studies, Music, History, Sociology, Psychology, Language Technologies, Library Studies, Philosophy, Methodologies, Software/computation, and more.

The Proceedings of the 2019 International Conference of the Digital Humanities Association of Southern Africa (DHASA) are available at this link: https://upjournals.up.ac.za/index.php/dhasa/issue/view/283/24

volume 1, issue 1. Book of Abstracts of the Inaugural Conference of the DHASA 2017

DHASA 2017 intended to bring together both National and Internationals scholars in the DH domain covering applicable topics in the Humanities and Social Sciences arenas. The topics could focus on DH within the African and Southern African contexts, as well as on any topic related to methodological or computational aspects in DH.

The Conference takes place at one of the most prominent universities in Southern Africa, located within the picturesque Western Cape Province. It will attract high-level academic discussions and combine that with the collegial sharing of experiences and insights in the serene, beautiful town of Stellenbosch.