Statement of Ethics & Inclusion

The Digital Humanities Summer Institute is dedicated to offering a safe, respectful, friendly, and collegial environment for the benefit of everyone who attends, and for the advancement of the interests that bring us together. There is no place at DHSI for harassment or intimidation of any kind.
As part of the DHSI community, together we:

• Create and maintain a community that welcomes and encourages intellectual discussion and debate on issues impacting both our local DHSI community and the broader Digital Humanities community.
• Affirm that we are an inclusive organization and community that is anti-oppression and recognizes intersectionalities.
• Commit to ensuring that all events and engagements are free from harassment and/or oppression, including but not limited to restrictions on free expression, discrimination against any person on the basis of race, color, sex, religion, national origin, age, sexual orientation, disability, gender identity or expression, marital status, genetic predisposition or carrier status, military status, and beyond. We do not tolerate harassment of DHSI participants in any form.
• Commit to ensuring that all documents, presentations, slides, or materials connected to or otherwise disseminated at DHSI conform to these standards of inclusiveness.
• Recognize that sexual harassment (including, but not limited to, unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favours, or other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature) is a specific type of discriminatory harassment and is abuse.
• Commit to helping each other recognize our own positionality when articulating statements and beliefs, rather than enabling assumptions that we are “all on the same page.” This requires articulation, explanation, asking questions, working respectfully across difference, and showing compassion and understanding.
• Resolve, collectively and individually, not to use sexually, racially, transphobic, or ableist derogatory or demeaning language or imagery in DHSI events and activities.
• Agree to carry these commitments beyond the face-to-face or communal spaces, including into online venues.
• Commit to educate each other on matters of discrimination and oppression, and support anti-oppression education, pedagogy, and research.

We acknowledge and respect the Lekwungen peoples on whose traditional territory the university stands and the Songhees, Esquimalt and WSÁNEĆ peoples whose historical relationships with the land continue to this day.

Please contact the DHSI Director if you have any concerns related to these issues at DHSI.

Further resources:

• Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations’ Conference Code of Conduct
• University of Victoria, pertinent policies, equity and diversity:
  • Creating a Respectful and Productive Learning Environment
  • Equity and Diversity
  • Discrimination and Harassment
  • Ethics (Privacy, Confidentiality Rights; Human Research; Course-Based Research)

Led by Jacqueline Wernimont and Ángel David Nieves, with the DHSI community (2015, 2016; links and acknowledgement revised 2018).