=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-2364/40_paper
|storemode=property
|title=A Convergence of Methodologies: Notes on
Data-Intensive Humanities Research
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2364/40_paper.pdf
|volume=Vol-2364
|authors=Nina Tahmasebi,Niclas Hagen,Daniel Brodén,Mats Malm
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/dhn/TahmasebiHBM19
}}
==A Convergence of Methodologies: Notes on
Data-Intensive Humanities Research==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2364/40_paper.pdf
A Convergence of Methodologies: Notes on
Data-Intensive Humanities Research
Nina Tahmasebi, Niclas Hagen, Daniel Brodén, Mats Malm
University of Gothenburg, Sweden
{nina.tahmasebi, niclas.hagen, daniel.broden, mats.malm}@gu.se
Abstract. In this paper, we discuss a data-intensive research method-
ology for the digital humanities. We highlight the differences and com-
monalities between quantitative and qualitative research methodologies
in relation to a data-intensive research process. We argue that issues
of representativeness and reduction must be in focus for all phases of
the process; from the status of texts as such, over their digitization to
pre-processing and methodological exploration.
1 Introduction
It is common among scholars in the field of the humanities to emphasize the in-
herent differences between the methodologies of humanistic and natural-scientific
research. Although the differences between the humanities and the natural sci-
ences have been conceptualized in various ways – whether it has to do with
different fields of interest, ontologies, etcetera – commentators have tended to
warn that the humanities should not model itself after the methods of natural
science (see Kjørup 2009: 75–91 [11]).
However, the merging of traditional humanities with quantitative approaches
has opened new methodological venues that point towards the natural sciences
rather than the interpretive, largely qualitative methodology associated with
humanities. Digital humanities is to some extent a merging of two fields, the
humanities and data science1 . The aim of data science is to enable a high-level
overview of our data and give us the possibility to discern patterns that could
otherwise not be seen, and to grasp quantities and time spans of data that that
we otherwise would have no hope to cover in a single lifetime. While tradi-
tional humanities has made use of relatively small amounts of text, data science
has, in theory, the possibility to handle infinite amounts2 . Still, data science
develop methods that are limited to small scopes and single questions, while
the qualitative humanities can see beyond individual texts and times, to answer
multi-faceted questions related to cultural contexts, societal and identity condi-
tions and change. Qualitative humanities can potentially capture the suggestive,
sensory, existential, contradictory, ambivalent and ambiguous aspects stemming
1
While data science uses scientific methods and processes to extract knowledge and
insights from data of all kinds, in this paper, we consider only textual data.
2
The limiting factor is most often the amount of available, relevant texts.
438
from the human imagination and experience. This is the domain expertise that
the humanities bring into the meeting with data science.
The convergence between the humanities and data science brings with it clear
benefits, including the possibilities to base conclusions on large and representa-
tive samples of text. This paper focuses on methodological convergence. Com-
mentators have previously noted that, apart from offering alternative method-
ological and epistemological venues for traditional humanities, the expansion of
digital humanities has also given rise to great number of questions and issues
that need to be carefully considered from an epistemological perspective (see e.g.
Berry 2012 [5]; Kitchin 2014 [10]). While these issues certainly have been treated
within the digital humanities, and even more within the social sciences, there
is need for clarifying the conditions of data-intensive research in the humanities
more systematically.
The overall purpose of the paper is to present a starting-point for addressing
some specific epistemological issues induced by the methodological convergence
of humanities and data science. We discuss a number of interrelated issues and
concepts concerning representativity and reduction, as they apply to method,
data and results. Our ambition is not to be comprehensive, and each projects
will inevitably be concerned with these issues to different degrees. We highlight
some key features of the data-intensive humanities research process, in the hope
to further an important discussion in, not only the digital humanities community,
but also within the traditional humanities.
The disposition of the paper is as follows: We begin by discussing the data-
intensive research process. A hypothesis-driven process is natural in data science,
while the humanities are more often driven by a research question. In this section
we connect the two, in order to clarify how research questions and hypotheses
can work in data-intensive humanities research. Second, we discuss use of models
as one instance of reduction. Third, we discuss the validation of results from the
data-intensive process. Fourth, we discuss how the rise of digital humanities and
quantitative methodologies places traditional humanistic approaches in another
light. We conclude by emphasizing the current challenge for the digital human-
ities community in exploring, interpreting, validating, evaluating data science
methods and, not least, discussing its further implications for the humanities.
2 Data-Intensive Digital Humanities Research
To a great extent, digital humanities employs data science methods to gain in-
sights into large scale, often diachronic, collections of digital text. While this
has been done on other materials and for other purposes in data science, the
aim in digital humanities is to generate humanities knowledge. This collabora-
tion should, in the optimal case, offer the possibility for the humanities to base
their conclusions on larger and representative samples of text, as well as offer
possibilities to ask other kinds of research questions. This alternative method-
ology should generate knowledge that is sustainable and robust against time,
and additional scrutiny of the same or additional sources. In addition, it should
439
Research results Text mining
Hypothesis
Question method
Data
(digital large-scale text)
Fig. 1. A schematic model of the research process in data-intensive humanities.
offer the data science new, broader kinds of problems to target their methods
towards.
However, typical digital humanities projects are conducted with either a
strong data science or humanities bias. The data science projects, on the one
hand, are often conducted with a computer science, math, or language technol-
ogy perspective where the interpretation and the understanding of the research
questions are sacrificed at the expense of mining techniques and large quanti-
ties of data. The humanities projects, on the other hand, are often conducted
on smaller scale data using methods that may not be the best suited for the
problem, or data, at hand.
2.1 The Data-Intensive Research Process
If we concentrate on the methodologies of systematic data-intensive research,
it typically has a clear process and several important components. There is
data, a text mining method and results. Motivating this are research questions
and hypotheses. In the process of data-intensive research, there are two main
methods for making use of large scale text. First, in an exploratory fashion to
find and formulate interesting hypotheses, that is, work departs from a general
research question. Alternatively, one starts with a well-defined hypothesis and
employs large scale text to find evidence to support or reject the hypothesis in a
validating fashion. For both of the above, there is a research question involved
that can correspond to one or several different hypotheses.
The process can be schematically illustrated as in Fig. 1. Both the exploratory
and the validation paths follow the same process, but start at different points.
The exploratory path moves from the research question to hypothesis via data
and text mining method. The validation path has already been boiled down to
one or several clearly defined hypotheses and starts from there. Then data and
methods can better be chosen with respect to the research question at hand. The
exploratory path can be said to aim at discovering patterns, while the validation
path is aimed at demonstrating or proving patterns.
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In both paths, a text mining method is employed to generate (directly inter-
pretable or aggregated) results from the text.
2.2 Research Questions and Hypotheses
One of the great challenges of digital humanities is to reason about how results
from text mining (or other kinds of data science) can be used to corroborate or
reject a hypothesis, and as an extension, can contribute to the wider research
question. This amounts to interpreting the results and “translating” them into
conclusions about the original research question. Here is where the humanities’
in-depth domain knowledge comes into play. However, let us compare three dif-
ferent starting points for a research process when it comes to the relationship
between research question and hypothesis.
1. One research question and one hypothesis: A researcher is interested in how
the general sentiment with regards to a concept, like a trade or technology,
has changed over time. The research question focuses on “how”, and data and
method are designed so as to follow the exploratory path. If this results in a
hypothesis about more precisely how notions changed, then this hypothesis
“that” can be corroborated or refuted through the validation path with
adjusted data and method.
2. One research question and several hypotheses: A researcher is interested in
how a certain technology, means of transportation or communication, has
affected society. This research question needs to be broken down into several,
and a number of them must be used to answer the question in full. Which
sentiments were there? Which new behaviors were the result? Which facets
of life were affected? Suitable data and method need to be devised and
by following the exploratory path, these questions can be reformulated as
propositions: hypotheses, which are tested using the validating path.
3. Data and text mining method but no research question: We can envision
the case when there is an interesting source of data but no clear research
questions (for example, the digitized letters of an influential author). A text
mining method can be used to find interesting patterns and signals to ex-
plore further. That is, we follow the exploratory path to find a rewarding
hypothesis. The focus is the data and the text mining method. Often times,
a method like topic modeling is used as a way of getting an overview of
different themes around a concept of interest. These topics can be explored
and good hypotheses formulated in a more informed fashion.
2.3 Interpretation of Results
In traditional humanities, the researcher is the bridge between results and in-
terpretation. In data-intensive humanities research, the situation is slightly dif-
ferent. The typical result of a text mining method is not necessarily directly in-
terpretable for the hypothesis, nor need the hypotheses be directly interpretable
with respect to the research question. The process of moving between results
and the research question is in itself a result and in need of evaluation.
441
To exemplify a “model of interpretation” (see more on models in the con-
text of humanities in section 3), we go outside of the digital humanities where
data-intensive research is tied to societal impact (SCB, [19]). To measure severe
material poverty in the EU, a set of nine different criteria are measured. These
include the possibility to pay for unforeseen expenses, have a color TV, phone
or car, and have sufficient heating in the home. If someone cannot fulfill at least
four of the criteria, they are considered to live in severe material poverty.
Each individual criterion is measured by asking a sample of a countries’ res-
idents.To measure the criteria (hypotheses in our case), each person is asked a
set of questions (corresponding to the text-mining methods). These questions
are aimed at capturing the phenomena that we are interested in. One example
question is Can you afford at least two pair of shoes? The answers from each
participant are then weighted according to group belonging, and groups with
lower answering rates are weighted up to get a fair representation. This weight-
ing is a part of the interpretation; different weightings provide different results
and should be subject to evaluation and discussion. In addition, the number of
criteria needed to define material poverty is also an essential part of the inter-
pretation of results. All of these acts go into a model of interpretation. In this
example, parts of the model are clearly defined and can be subject to discussion
and evaluation. We argue that all digital humanities-projects should make their
model of interpretation clear, and preferably evaluate with respect to alternative
models.
2.4 Reduction as a part of the Data-Intensive Process
The process of formulating appropriate hypotheses to answer a research question
is almost always reductive: narrowing focus to particular aspects, sorting out in
order to clarify. In all cases, data is central. Data-intensive research can only
provide results for that which is represented in the data. Already at this point,
it is important to reason about representativity. Text is always a reduction of
the world, and only representative for a part of it. In historical text, like the
Google books corpus, men are almost ten times more likely to be mentioned
than women, until the beginning of the 20th century, when the two begin mov-
ing towards the middle and finally meet somewhere in the 1980’s ([8]). Other
socioeconomic factors also play a role, both for modern and historical texts.
Different genres obviously represent society in different ways and with different
restrictions. Therefore, when using text to study cultural or social factors, it is
important to remember who is present in the text (and who is not).
These conditions of text as data are general: to them come methodological
reductions. Typical digital humanities applications have restricted access to text
corpora, or reduce them for their specific purposes and make use of collections of
digitized newspapers, literature, or social media, to answer research questions.
Reduction can be seen as the other side of the coin of representativity; typically,
the more representativity, the less reduction. At this point, a first methodological
reduction is taking place. Then come other kinds of methodological reduction,
as part of the method used. The model as such provides an illustrative example
442
of methodological reduction and Fig. 1 is one example. Consequently, the usage
of scientific models within data-intensive approaches constitute another case of
reduction. In the next section, we discuss the issue of scientific models, and their
function and implication for the digital humanities.
3 Scientific Models as an Instance of Reduction
Models and their usage within science has been an object of debate within phi-
losophy and theory of science for a long time, yet these discussions have almost
exclusively been devoted to the usage and importance of models within the nat-
ural sciences and not within the humanities (e.g. Bailer-Jones 2009, 2003; Giere
2004; Morgan and Morrison 1999). Yet, several aspects within these discussions
have implications for the purpose of this paper as the issue of models and mod-
eling are an intrinsic reductive feature within the methods of data-intensive
humanities.
Daniela Bailer-Jones defines a scientific model as a “description of a phe-
nomenon that facilitates access to that phenomenon” (2009: 1 [3]). Margaret
Morrison’s and Mary S. Morgan’s analysis of the functions and usage of models
present a similar viewpoint, where they mean that models not only function as
a means of access but also as a means of representation as they represent either
some aspect of the world, or some aspect of our theories about the world, or both
at once. Hence a model’s representative power allows it to function not just as a
way to gain access, but to teach us something about the phenomena it represents
(Morrison and Morgan 1999: 11–12 [15]). However, as part of their function as
a means of representation and as a tool for intervention, models also carry with
them a reductive power. Models practically never aim to describe or represent
a phenomenon in its entirety, scientific models always involve certain simplifica-
tions and approximations (Bailer-Jones 2003: 66 [2]; Morrison and Morgan 1999:
16 [15]). Models then simplify the phenomena in question and through that re-
duction they are intended to capture the essence of something while leaving out
less essential (from the perspective at hand) details. So, a model within the nat-
ural sciences involves a process of reduction wherein the phenomena or problem
areas that stand in focus are reduced or simplified in order for researchers to be
able to produce scientific knowledge about them.
Within the humanities, at least within mainstream humanities, the usage
of models is still rare (McCarty 2004: 255 [12]). Nevertheless, it can be argued
that models and the practice of modeling are at the very heart of digital hu-
manities (Rockwell and Sinclair 2016). The various phenomena that stand in
focus for digital humanities research not only have to be represented through a
model, but even the process whereby the researcher investigates the phenomena
in question needs to be translated into a model. Approaching the phenomena
with methods and tools developed within digital humanities, the models give
research a leverage. Moreover, models can also be adapted and tested by others
in a way that more “verbal” theories cannot do (Rockwell and Sinclair 2016 164
[18]). A text, then, is modeled through digitization that transforms the original
443
text into a digital model of the text. That model, if sufficiently rich, can serve
as a surrogate for the text. The digital model can then be processed using im-
plementations of hermeneutical processes. The text and the tools are thus both
implementations of theoretical models of the phenomenon of interpretation. One
is a usable model of the interpretation as edition; the other a reusable model
of interpretation as process (Rockwell and Sinclair 2016: 164 [18]). We may add
that the model of the text reduces the original text, while the model of the
interpretation reduces the first model, that of the text.
In relation to the function and usage of models within natural science, models
within digital humanities seem to attain the same kind of functions and usage.
For example, Willard McCarty points up on how models offer both possibilities
for an increased access and manipulation, as well as a way for representation of
phenomena: ‘By ”modeling” I mean the heuristic process of constructing and
manipulating models; a ”model” I take to be either a representation of models
within something for purposes of study, or a design for realizing something new’
(McCarty 2004: 255 [12]). Both the possibility for representation and manipula-
tion of phenomena are pointed upon by McCarty in his outline of the function
and usage of models within digital humanities. Moreover, what also reoccurs in
McCarty’s discussion is that models and modeling within the field, as in the
natural sciences, is a form of reduction: ‘a model is by nature a simplified and
therefore fictional or idealized representation, often taking quite a rough-and-
ready form’ (McCarty 2004:255 [12]).
We can say that models and modeling within digital humanities carry a
reductive potential; that is, at the same time as models - by simplification -
offer a number of advantages (they both represent and offer possibilities for
manipulation of phenomena of interest), they reduce the phenomena that we
want to investigate. Consequently, models do carry an intrinsic reductive power
that we have to be aware of; of what is the model representative?
4 Representativity and Reduction
In all phases of the data-intensive humanities research process, reductions take
place. The first, basic step of reduction is that our texts cannot be fully represen-
tative for all phenomena that we want to study. Next, our selection of the texts
further reduces our base. The digitization of the text is, as explained above, a
model of the original text and thus a reduction in itself. Depending on the qual-
ity of the digitization, more or less of the textual information is intact. Finally,
the pre-processing and the text mining methods additionally reduce the original
text in several ways.
Large scale texts cannot be studied by taking all aspects and words into ac-
count. It resembles the situation with creating a dictionary of language usage.
Not all words, nor every single usage of a word, can be included in the dictionary,
without making the dictionary as large as the text itself, and thus rendering it
useless. Instead, a dictionary generalizes the usage. In text mining, the gener-
alization is done by focusing on certain aspects of a text, or certain parts, or
444
both. A typical method for focusing in large scale text mining is to keep only
the most frequent words (typically ranging from the 10 000 to the 250 000 most
frequent word forms), or to keep words of certain part-of-speech (nouns, noun
phrases, verbs, adjectives etc). Stopwords and function words (words that carry
little meaning but are very frequent) are often filtered out to speed up the pro-
cess and to increase the chances of the methods to find relevant information. In
each filtering step, a reduction is made.
In the example: “... Cecilia was a very clever woman, and a most skillful
counter-plotter to adversity.” we keep “Cecilia was / clever woman / skillful
counter-plotter / adversity”after filtering function words and stopwords. Only
“Cecilia”, “woman” , and “counter-plotter” are kept if we focus on nouns and
only “was” if we keep verbs. Additional words might be removed if we filter on
frequency as well.
The original information is thus reduced at the preprocessing step. In addi-
tion, the text-mining method itself also performs a reduction. To see patterns
of different kinds, we cannot view all of the words at the same time. Methods
like topic modeling, clustering and word representations of different kinds lead
to a set of results. These results need not include all text. For example, topic
modeling can result in a set of topics that are not representative for each text
on which the topic modeling was performed. Again, a reduction is performed.
Additionally, the accounts need not include all results: often, the number is pre-
determined. Finally, the results are interpreted in support or refutation of one
or several hypotheses, or as indications pertaining to a wider research question.
From the results of text mining, we have to draw conclusions that contribute
to the knowledge of one or another aspect of the world. At this stage, we need
to reason about representativity as the opposite to reduction. We began by
discussing how texts are representative of a part of the world, and different
texts have different representativeness. Social media texts for example, have a
much higher representativeness of western young people, than of middle east
elderly or women. Next, the reduction of the text mining method affects the
representativity of the result. How much of the original text are the results valid
for? Finally, the same question should be asked once we reach the conclusion
step; these conclusions that we draw, for which part of the world are they valid;
men or women, rich or poor, young or old? – the parameters are numerous. The
limit is set by the representativity of data; results can not be considered, with
sufficiently high confidence, to be representative for more than the original text
was; if there were few women in the original text, then the results cannot fully
reflect women.
Generally, we can see a trade-off between reduction and representativity
which we illustrate in Fig. 2. We rarely start with full representativity, and
we rarely end with full reduction (or we would not be left with anything at all).
The relation between the two need not be linear; representativity does not have
to decline at the same rate as the amount of information is reduced. Good text
mining methods attempt to reduce information with a lower loss, similar to com-
pression methods of images or videos; we can reduce the amount of information
445
hypothesis
model
method
data preprocessing
digitization
selection
Fig. 2. A schematic model of the relation between representativity and reduction in
data-intensive humanities research.
that is being sent, while keeping a fairly high quality of color and movement.
While improvements are made at a quick pace, current data science techniques
are almost always associated with loss of representativity.
This loss of representativity means that our results are a small window out of
which we view our large-scale and possibly long-term text. Our window gives us
access to incomplete pictures of the view, and different positioning of the window
will result in different views. The image that can be viewed corresponds to the
text(s) that we have chosen as our basis. The different positioning of windows
corresponds to the method and the preprocessing that has been chosen. Creating
topic models using nouns or verbs, using 10 or 100 topics, looking at the first
10 or 500 most likely words, are all choices that result in very different windows
out of which we view the same text that affect the conclusions that we draw.
In the mathematical world, this insight is well known. Assume that we want
to find the highest point on (or the value that maximizes) a curve, for example
corresponding to profit. The curve has two peaks, the right one is higher than
the left one, and in between there is a low point. If we start at the leftmost end
of the curve, and walk upwards as long as there is an upwards, we will end up
in the peak that is the lowest of the two (a local optimum). If our criterion for
continuing is that we have to keep moving upwards, this criterion is met at the
peak, and we will stop walking. With a limited window size, we will not be able
to see the other, higher peak. If we instead start in the right end of the curve,
using the exact same methodology, we will end up in the higher of the two peaks
(a global optimum). Again, without knowing that we have found the highest
peak, because of our limited view out of the window. If we look through the first
window, we see the local optimum and might draw one set of conclusions. If we
instead look through the second window, we might draw completely different
conclusions (for example, that the benefits are high enough to continue with the
development of a product, or not).
446
5 Reduction and Validation
Any scholarly approach demands reduction in order to be precise, and in the
humanities, assumptions about society and mankind traditionally govern these
perspectives in more conspicuous ways than in the hard sciences. This has con-
siderable implications when new kinds and volumes of data are introduced and
historical transformations are modeled. In particular, the question of represen-
tativity and validation is affected by the question of quantitative and qualitative
methods.
For a critical example of methodological issues inherent in a traditional hu-
manities approach, we can turn to the study of film genres. In recent years there
has been a revisionist trend in film genre studies. Commentators have argued
that many traditional accounts of popular film genres are inaccurate and that
the research has been driven primarily by critical and theoretical agendas, rather
than by a commitment to wide historical analysis. Not only have scholars all too
often limited their interest to a handful canonized classics or works by well-
known filmmakers, but they have also tended to substitute “assumptions and
generalizations for detailed empirical research” (Neale 2000: [16]). Many tra-
ditional accounts of the historical transformation of film genres have not been
grounded in evidence drawn from representative sampling, but either on “bald
assertions or too invidious comparisons between a couple of titles [...] selected
specifically to illustrate the assertion” (Gallagher 2012: 299–300 [7]). Although
the example is drawn from a specific field, film genre scholars have hardly been
alone in their treatment of a limited number of “classics” as representative for,
for example, broad historical transformations, when the texts matched more or
less arbitrary paradigms.
A similar situation can be found within literature studies. Here, Franco
Moretti’s proclamation about distant reading as a way of reinterpreting literary
history can serve as an illustration of both the enrichments and the complica-
tions induced by methods in which the empirical material is analysed through
various quantitative methods (summarized in Moretti 2013 [14]). Moretti’s point
that distant reading serves as a way to substitute literary historiography based
on a narrow canon with broader understandings of a very wide range of books
has been rightly influential: we very much need to free ourselves from previous
understandings. Still, the concept of machine-aided reading needs developing, as
do the practices of it. Distant reading is per definition quantitative, and while
that offers many new possibilities, there are distinct limitations to it. Generally,
to assess quantitative results, the data they are produced from have to be dis-
tinctly representative. If they are not, or their representativeness is not clearly
defined, they risk being misleading.
In the same vein, Matthew Jockers, a forceful advocate of quantitative liter-
ary analysis consequently delimits studies to the quantitative in his Macroanal-
ysis (Jockers 2013 [9]). This approach is fruitful, but has attracted criticism not
least as the data has been little representative with regards to such aspects as
gender, race, etc. (Nowviskie 2012 [17]; Bode 2017 [6]; Bergenmar and Leppänen
2018 [4]). Pointing at a number of problems concerning selection of and account-
447
ing for material, Katherine Bode concludes that this way of modeling literary
history is reductive and a-historical (2017, 79). Bode’s major point is that this
kind of distant reading actually repeats and reinforces the old, close reading no-
tion of texts as static and “the source of all meaning”, neglecting the dynamics
of texts and contexts in evolving meaning, circumstances such as different inter-
pretations, changes of wording and understanding of the text over time. Instead,
departing from Jerome McGann (2014 [13]), Bode suggests a way toward big
literary data inspired by the scholarly, contextualizing and in a number of ways
non-reductive edition (91–2). The transferring of models from editorial projects
certainly is of the essence (cf. Leonard 2016), but the question remains how to
handle really large data sets without curating them to the extent that the project
becomes untenable.
As Ted Underwood comments (2016 [21]), “It’s okay to simplify the world in
order to investigate a specific question. That’s what smart qualitative scholars do
themselves, when they’re not busy giving impractical advice to their quantitative
friends.” Reduction is of the essence: the question is how to handle it.3 One way
of addressing that problem is very strict care and description concerning selection
and representativity of empirical data – another way is to let the quantitative
analysis pave the way for qualitative analysis without being overwhelmed by
restrictions and deliberations. Using another kind of topic modeling than Jockers,
Peter Leonard and Timothy Tangherlini have instead described a way to use
quantitative methods in order to land at fruitful qualitative investigation. By
starting with a “sub-corpus” the researcher is able to apply her/his domain
expertise to govern the examination. The quantitative modeling and mapping
of “topics”, in this case, then provides the means for tracing patterns through
large materials, and then going directly to the sources for detailed, qualitative
analysis (Tangherlini & Leonard 2013 [20]).
There are more ways than this to achieve a productive convergence of quanti-
tative and qualitative methods, but we may conclude that this kind of approach
has at least two distinct benefits. On the one hand, it connects in a very natural
way to traditional humanities, as it provides powerful ways to prepare qualitative
studies with quantitative tools. On the other hand, it alleviates the demand for
representativity, as the quantitative results need not claim to be exhaustive, but
rather lead to careful explication of patterns, structures, lines of reasoning and
the like – and as in traditional humanities, such explication can be made without
strict demands of representativity. So, the proposition is that traditional micro
levels cannot only be replaced by macro levels, but that meso levels are also
needed, and above all, that it must be possible to freely move between the levels
and between the quantitative and the qualitative: adaptive reading. It is here
that the humanities can offer the sensibility of the vague and elusive cultural
contextualization. Machine-aided reading also makes it possible to explore the
dynamics of literature in other ways. Studying only the first edition of a work is
fruitful in many ways, but we may now trace the changes of a work through all
3
An entirely different, highly interesting exploration of reduction as a method is
presented by Allison (2018) [1].
448
its editions: a wonderful opportunity to map the fluctuating character of the lit-
erary text. We may also, as the tools get more refined, trace the changes a work
undergoes as it is translated into other languages: was it expanded, abbreviated,
changed ideologically or aesthetically, or in other ways adapted for its new in-
tended culture and readers? Even though there are a number of risks involved
in digital humanities, as outlined above, it appears that these issues have the
potential of truly contributing to the methodology of traditional humanities.
Somewhat paradoxically, questions of completeness and representativity are
often (and rightly) leveled in criticism of digital humanities, but only rarely
discussed in traditional studies. There is a distinct need to clarify how collection,
preprocessing and exploration have been performed in digital humanities studies
– but there is also a distinct need for the corresponding methodological accuracy
in a great number of traditional studies. One reason that this has been neglected
is the acknowledging that a traditional, qualitative study cannot be entirely
representative when the material is too large – however, the traditional approach
has also been that of course the study cannot claim to be entirely complete, but
it can claim to show distinct developments and tendencies at the same time as
there may be other examples that do not correspond. On the one hand, this is
precisely the reason why qualitative digital humanities more easily can handle
the problem of representativity and completeness. On the other hand, there is
a need for concise clarification of how a study was performed, in order for it to
be properly assessed. Here, we believe that digital humanities have the power to
set fruitful examples and incite methodological development even in those parts
of the humanities which do not focus on digital materials and methods.
6 Conclusions
With this paper, we hope to further a discussion of finding good ways of em-
ploying a data-intensive research methodology for the humanities. We have high-
lighted the differences and commonalities between the quantitative and qualita-
tive in relation to a data-intensive research process.
Even though every project has its own conditions and characteristics, we
argue that the data-intensive digital humanities must focus on representative-
ness and reduction in all phases of the process; from the status of texts as such,
over their digitization to pre-processing and methodological exploration. Because
the aim is to generate sustainable knowledge in the humanities, special attention
must be given to the interpretation of hypotheses with respect to a research ques-
tion. The merger of quantitative and qualitative methods emphasizes the need to
validate on different levels of the research process and to maintain transparency.
We conclude that the methodological convergence between the humanities and
data science has the potential to raise methodological awareness in the more
traditional and non-digital humanities, which only rarely or to a limited extent
deals with questions of, among other things, reduction and representativity.
449
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