Towards an inclusive & active South African community of practice in Digital Humanities & Computational Social Science
About the DH Summit 2026
The DH Summit 2026 is a national gathering of researchers, educators, students, institutional leaders, and policy voices working at the intersection of digital methods and humanities scholarship. The summit is jointly organised by SADiLaR/ESCALATOR, UNISA, NMU, and NWU, and will be held in person at the University of South Africa (UNISA) in Pretoria, with online participation available for those who cannot attend in person.
The summit is designed as a working event, not a conventional conference. There will be no standard paper presentations. Instead, participants collaborate around shared questions and produce something of lasting value together. The summit’s primary output will be a South African DH position paper: a durable, citable document that articulates where digital humanities stands in this country, what the field requires, and what its communities are committed to.
Pre-Summit Working Groups
To ensure the summit produces substantive outcomes, a set of pre-summit working groups will be established to begin their work in advance of the October event. Each group will be assigned a focused theme or question to develop in the months leading up to the summit. When the summit opens, each group will present a short draft contribution — a position, synthesis, or set of questions — as the starting point for a facilitated session with all participants.
How it works: Participants join a small working group aligned to their area of interest. Each group meets online between June and September 2026 to develop its contribution. At the summit, the group’s contribution opens a facilitated session — a futures workshop or world café — with the wider gathering. Session outputs are synthesised and integrated into the South African DH position paper.
Working Group Themes
Eight working groups are being convened, each focused on a central question that the summit session will open up to the wider gathering.
| Theme | Working question |
| MAIN THEME | |
| What is DH — for us? | What does Digital Humanities mean in a South African, African, and Global South context — and what shared understanding can we build together? |
| MACRO GROUP 1: EDUCATION | |
| DH Curriculum and Classification | How should DH be classified in South Africa’s CESM system — and what would a nationally recognised DH curriculum framework look like? |
| Postgraduate Training and Cross-Institutional Infrastructure | Could a NEPTTP-style model support a cross-institutional DH postgraduate programme — and what would it take to make that happen? |
| MACRO GROUP 2: KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION & PRESERVATION | |
| Public Humanities | How does DH connect with communities, civic engagement, and publicly oriented knowledge production beyond the university? |
| Africanisation, Decolonisation, and Indigenous Knowledge | What does a genuinely African DH practice look like — and how do frameworks of decolonisation and indigenous knowledge reshape the field? |
| Radio, Media, and Community Knowledge | How does DH engage with radio and digital media as sites of knowledge production from and for communities? |
| Digital Preservation, Archives, and Information Practice | How do we preserve, curate, and provide access to South African knowledge heritage in digital environments — and what roles do librarians, archivists, and information professionals play in shaping DH practice? |
| MACRO GROUP 3: EVALUATION | |
| Evaluating Interdisciplinary DH Research | How do we evaluate and recognise DH outputs within institutional reward structures — and what criteria should guide that assessment? |
| MACRO GROUP 4: COLLABORATION | |
| Policy Engagement | How do we bring DH into formal policy conversations with DHET, CHE, and national funders — and what does the field need to make that case? |
DH Cluster Summit 2026: Summary of Proceedings
7–9 October 2026 | UNISA Muckleneuk Campus, Pretoria
Overview
The Inaugural Digital Humanities (DH) Cluster Summit 2026 took place from 7 to 9 October 2026 at the University of South Africa’s Muckleneuk Campus in Pretoria. The summit brought together researchers, educators, postgraduate students, librarians, archivists, media practitioners and institutional leaders from universities and organisations across South Africa, with further participants joining online.
The summit was jointly organised by the South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR), through its ESCALATOR programme, together with UNISA, Nelson Mandela University and North-West University. It was designed as a working event rather than a conventional conference. In place of paper presentations, participants engaged with contributions prepared in advance by pre-summit working groups. Their collective input will inform a South African Digital Humanities position paper.
| Dates | 7–9 October 2026 |
| Venue | Functional Hall, Kgorong Building, UNISA Muckleneuk Campus, Pretoria |
| Format | Hybrid: in person, with online participation via Microsoft Teams and a Facebook livestream. Sign language interpretation was provided throughout. |
| Co-hosts | SADiLaR (through the ESCALATOR programme), University of South Africa (UNISA), Nelson Mandela University (NMU) and North-West University (NWU) |
| Programme | Day 1: Defining the Field · Day 2: Building the Field · Day 3: Discussion to Action |
| Primary output | A South African Digital Humanities position paper |
Background and purpose
Between 2023 and 2025, NWU, UNISA and NMU each established formal Digital Humanities centres or hubs. Despite this institutional growth, DH is not yet defined in the DHET/CHE Classification of Educational Subject Matter (CESM), is largely absent from university curricula, and rarely features in national research infrastructure conversations. The Cluster Summit was established as a national response to this gap, bringing the DH community into direct conversation with the policy and funding structures that will determine whether the field can be formally recognised and sustained, with an eye on South Africa’s hosting of ADHO 2028.
The summit was framed as a working event rather than a conventional conference, organised around three guiding questions:
- Day 1, Defining the Field: Where are we, and what do we mean by Digital Humanities?
- Day 2, Building the Field: What does South African DH need to thrive?
- Day 3, Discussion to Action: What do we collectively want to do next?
Its primary output is a South African DH position paper: a single, citable reference point on curriculum recognition, evaluation and institutional support, designed to speak directly to the DHET, the CHE and funders such as the DSTI.
| WG | Working group | Focus | At the summit |
| Main theme | |||
| 1 | What is Digital Humanities in a South African context? | A shared understanding of DH in a South African, African and Global South context | Day 1 plenary |
| Education | |||
| 2 | Curriculum Development & CESM Classification | How DH should be classified in the DHET/CHE CESM system and recognised at degree level | Day 1 breakaway; Day 2 report |
| 3 | Postgraduate Programmes & the NEPTTP Model | Pathways for cross-institutional DH postgraduate training | Day 2 breakaway; Day 3 report |
| Knowledge production and preservation | |||
| 4 | Public Humanities | How DH connects with communities, civic engagement and publicly oriented knowledge production | Day 1 breakaway; Day 2 report |
| 5.1 | Africanisation & Decolonisation | Africanisation and decolonisation as frameworks for DH methods, tools and infrastructure | Day 1 breakaway; Day 2 report |
| 5.2 | Indigenous Knowledge Systems | Ethical, community-led work with indigenous knowledge systems in digital environments | Day 2 breakaway; Day 3 report |
| 6 | Radio & Digital Media | Radio and digital media as sites of community knowledge production | Day 2 breakaway; Day 3 report |
| 7 | Digital Preservation, Archives & Information Practice | Digital memory, access and preservation, with LIS institutions as full DH partners | Day 1 breakaway; Day 2 report |
| Evaluation | |||
| 8 | DH Evaluation Guidelines | Evaluation guidelines for DH outputs not recognised by current DHET frameworks | Day 1 breakaway; Day 2 report |
| Collaboration | |||
| 9 | Policy Engagement | How the DH community engages DHET, CHE and funders such as the DSTI | Day 2 breakaway; Day 3 report |
Proceedings
Day 1: Defining the Field
Following a welcome on behalf of UNISA by the programme director, Dr Denzil Chetty, the context-setting keynote was delivered online by Prof ’Tunde Ope-Davies, Founding Director of the Centre for Digital Humanities at the University of Lagos, the first DH centre in Africa. His address, Afro-Centred Digital Humanities as a Framework for Reconfiguring African Studies and Recalibrating Indigenous Languages and Knowledge Systems, argued that Africa should be a source of theory and not only an object of inquiry. He called for community-held linguistic data to be governed as epistemic sovereignty, and for South Africa’s twelve official languages, including South African Sign Language, to become languages of DH theory and teaching. He also acknowledged SADiLaR’s contribution to the technologisation of South Africa’s indigenous languages.
Delegates then met the three DH structures and the national DH infrastructure (UNISA, NWU, NMU and SADiLaR), heard what each can offer, and learnt how their own institutions could establish a DH centre. Working Group 1 presented its findings on what Digital Humanities means in a South African context, followed by a panel discussion with representatives of the South African DH centres and hubs.
In the afternoon, the following working groups broke away for sessions, and summit participants contributed to each group’s summary:
- WG 8 · Evaluation — DH Evaluation Guidelines
- WG 2 · Education — Curriculum Development & CESM Classification
- WG 4 · Knowledge Production — Public Humanities
- WG 5.1 · Knowledge Production — Africanisation & Decolonisation
- WG 7 · Digital Preservation, Archives & Information Practice
The day closed with a plenary summary of key points and an overview of Day 2.
Day 2: Building the Field
The official opening included a welcome from Prof Zethu Nkosi, Executive Dean of the College of Human Sciences at UNISA. Prof Langa Khumalo, Chief Director of SADiLaR, then delivered the keynote address, Building the Field of Digital Humanities for the Future Human. He argued that the humanities should be active participants in shaping technological change rather than recipients of it, and asked what kind of graduate higher education should cultivate in an increasingly digital society. He described three possible positions for the humanities, as consumers, adapters or co-creators of technology, and made the case for co-creation through sovereign data developed in and for the Global South. In his words, the challenge is “not merely to digitise the Humanities, but to humanise the digital future.”
In the second round of breakaway sessions, the remaining four working groups shared their findings and gathered delegate input:
- WG 3 · Education — Postgraduate Programmes & the NEPTTP Model
- WG 5.2 · Knowledge Production — Indigenous Knowledge Systems
- WG 6 · Knowledge Production — Radio & Digital Media
- WG 9 · Collaboration — Policy Engagement
In the afternoon, Working Groups 8, 2, 4, 5.1 and 7 presented their findings and recommendations in plenary, refined with the delegate input from the Day 1 breakaway sessions. The day ended with a Digital FUN Technology session, where delegates tried out metaverse and virtual reality tools and took part in a gaming competition, followed by the summit Gala Dinner.
Day 3: Discussion to Action
Mr Juan Steyn, Chairperson of the Digital Humanities Association of Southern Africa (DHASA) and Director of Operations at SADiLaR, delivered the closing keynote, It Will Take Our Village. He reflected on the pace at which artificial intelligence is changing scholarly practice and on the importance of keeping human understanding central. He traced the growth of DH in South Africa, from early publications and national workshops to the founding of DHASA in 2016, its journal in 2022, the recognition of DH in the DSTI’s Decadal Plan, and South Africa’s successful bid to host ADHO 2028. His central message was that DH is not a solo field: it will take the whole community to formalise and develop it.
Working Groups 3, 5.2, 6 and 9 then presented their findings and recommendations, refined with delegate input from the Day 2 breakaway sessions. The summit concluded with a session on the way forward and closing remarks and a vote of thanks.
Emerging themes
Several themes recurred across the keynotes and working group sessions:
- A living position paper. Working groups agreed that the position paper should serve as the starting point for ongoing engagement, supported by concrete tasks and shared accountability, rather than as a final product.
- African epistemic agency. Participants emphasised the need for African DH to generate its own theories, frameworks and infrastructure rather than applying frameworks developed elsewhere.
- Multilingualism and data sovereignty. Developing South Africa’s official languages as languages of DH research and teaching, and governing community-held data responsibly, were identified as priorities.
- Recognition and evaluation. The need for curriculum classification, postgraduate pathways and evaluation criteria that recognise DH outputs within institutional structures was raised repeatedly.
- Human-centred engagement with AI. Speakers highlighted the role of the humanities in shaping, not only using, emerging technologies.
Outcomes and next steps
The organising team proposed the following timeline for the development of the position paper:
| Proposed date | Milestone |
| 29 October 2026 | Working groups submit refined input, incorporating the contributions made at the summit. |
| 9 November 2026 | Draft position paper and executive summary completed. |
| November 2026 | Draft shared with the DHASA conference community, the SADiLaR Steering Committee and the DSTI. |
| Thereafter | Draft opened for broader input from collaborators and stakeholders. |
Prof Menno van Zaanen (SADiLaR) and Prof Janelize Morelli (NWU) will help lead the drafting, and representatives from other partner institutions are invited to join the drafting group. The ESCALATOR programme will support the working groups in collating their final input. Participants also proposed that summaries of the position paper be translated into South Africa’s official languages.
Looking ahead, the organisers proposed that future Cluster Summits be held ahead of the DHASA conference, so that their outcomes can feed into academic publication. The 2027 DHASA conference and the 2028 international Digital Humanities conference were highlighted as key opportunities to share South African and African DH with the wider world. Participants were encouraged to join the DHASA mailing list to remain connected with the community.
Acknowledgements
The organisers thank the co-hosting institutions, UNISA, NMU, NWU and SADiLaR, and acknowledge the support of the Department of Science, Technology and Innovation and the Department of Higher Education and Training through the University Capacity Development Programme. Sincere thanks go to the keynote speakers, the members and administrative support colleagues of all ten working groups, the panellists and facilitators, the sign language interpreters, and every participant who contributed in person and online.
Enquiries
For any questions regarding the working groups or the application process, please contact Jessica Mabaso, ESCALATOR Programme Coordinator, jessica.mabaso@nwu.ac.za.
