23/ 25 Years of Alternation, and the African Digital Humanities: Capacity, Communication, and Knowledge-Power1

Abstract

This article condenses the presentation by Prof J.A. Smit, as the International Open Access keynote lecture, of 23 October 2017. It forms the first of a double-barrel article that seeks to open up some research possibilities with regard to the subject and knowledge-power2. Drawing on Foucault, it firstly provides a theoretical framework that may assist in assessing the significance of Alternation, followed by a positioning of the questions Foucault raised through his nearly twenty years of research on this matter, in the digital, or electronic age, specifically with regard to the African Digital Humanities. It then briefly reflects on some of the founding ideas and provides a sample of the historical events in the history of Alternation (1994 – 1996), followed, by positioning it in the international dynamics of the digital age, and the move from Humanities Computing in Alternation, to the Digital Humanities. The fifth focus, and as part of the Conclusion, briefly reflects on Berners-Lee’s pioneering vision, as well as the most basic definition of the Digital Humanities, which provides a broad framework of both the past and future research of Alternation.