This talk explores the ethical challenges of building research data infrastructures (RDIs) for digitalized archives that contain historically hateful content. While mass digitization and open access are often celebrated as unquestioned goals, they can conflict with the responsibility to prevent the circulation of harmful material and the reinforcement of stereotypes. I will suggest a way forward through a transepistemic approach—that is, a framework for enabling agreement and dialogue among the many stakeholders involved in the digitalization and research process, from archivists and scholars to legal experts, educators, and affected communities. Rather than relying only on technical fixes or legal restrictions, this approach combines organizational and pedagogical principles to shape ethically grounded and practically workable solutions. I will also address how algorithmic bias, the dual use of AI, and the tension between freedom and restriction complicate the picture. The aim is to show that we need to find a middle ground—one that both enables innovative research and safeguards against the reproduction and spread of hateful historical ideologies.
Short Bio
Dr. Jan Krasni is a media studies scholar whose research focuses on hate discourses and online discrimination. His work explores the digitalization of historical archives and research libraries, examining how these processes intersect with broader paradigm shifts in the social sciences and humanities and with pressing questions around post-truth and the politics of knowledge.
At the Center for Research on Antisemitism (ZfA) in Berlin, Dr. Krasni served as the lead of the German team in the international project Decoding Antisemitism, which investigated both implicit and explicit forms of multimodal antisemitic user-generated content across digital platforms. Building on this experience, he has been actively involved in the digitalization of the ZfA’s archival collections, a project that has deepened his interest in the ethical and methodological challenges posed by making historically sensitive materials digitally accessible.
His current work brings together these strands by developing strategies for ethically responsible research data infrastructures, particularly in relation to archives containing problematic historical content.
The talk will be available via this link: https://tu-berlin.zoom.us/j/62739607385?pwd=YnVlMWpmVlF6UGQxMGhBVE1IME5ZUT09