Conference Agenda (All times are shown in Eastern Daylight Time)

As digital infrastructures and methods increasingly shape how cultural memory is preserved, accessed, and interpreted, questions of collaboration and participation have become central to both research and pedagogical practices in digital humanities and cultural heritage contexts. This panel explores the promises and challenges of participatory approaches to digital humanities and cultural heritage work. Bringing together five speakers in various domains of digital humanities, community archives, and digital curation, this panel offers multiple perspectives on how to engage different communities of interest, such as students, interdisciplinary scholars, librarians and practitioners, as well as local communities, in participatory digital humanities and cultural heritage work. Following the individual presentations, panelists will facilitate open discussions with attendees, seeking to collectively explore questions including how to design participatory work in digital humanities and cultural heritage practices, how to engage communities and collaborators in participatory work, and how to address the challenges that emerge in participatory processes. Through this collaborative and interactive approach, this panel seeks to advance knowledge production practices of digital humanities and cultural heritage, advocating for a “participatory future” of digital humanities and cultural heritage work.