ADHO is keen to address the lack of diversity evident in major missteps like the gender imbalance in the allocation of the 2014 bursaries as well as on the stage for the 2015 opening ceremonies, the latter of which took the shape they did despite gender parity (five women and four men) among CO representatives on the Steering Committee at the time.[5] Changes in policy and structure at the ADHO level can help to offset privilege and balance representation across multiple axes including gender, language, race, and nationality. A certain amount can and will be achieved through top-down change, such as by mandating diversity in local conference organizing committee membership and in choices of keynotes, but real transformation will require a culture change effected by an increasingly diverse complement of volunteers flowing into ADHO from the COs.

ADHO is, fundamentally, an organization of organizations. Representation within ADHO is crucially and entirely dependent on its COs. Whom do the COs nominate for positions within ADHO? Do CO representatives express their own opinions on behalf of their organization, or do they engage their members on important issues and bring to ADHO a more nuanced, broadly-based view? The diversity of opinions within individual COs can be challenging in larger organizations; the decision of Digital Humanities im deutschsprachigen Raum (DHd) to apply to become an ADHO CO as an organization separate from EADH is one approach to addressing the situation, but other resolutions are possible. The nature of ADHO in its current instantiation – as an umbrella organization of organizations – has had a significant effect on its funding, its staffing, and its mission. Beyond the conference, awards, and infrastructural services, there is little that “ADHO” itself does, other than through actions taken by COs. Improving representation in ADHO must, therefore, start with the COs – and such a shift in representation would have an impact on the organization at several levels and in many ways.

ADHO’s Multi-Lingualism and Multi-Culturalism Committee (MLMC) could, in principle, be another mechanism for supporting representation at the ADHO level, but, once again, the historical requirements for its constitution (one member per CO) have impacted its priorities. It has historically focused more on the multilingual aspect of its name than the multicultural one, and despite frequent and passionate advocacy about linguistic matters, its most consistent visible contribution has been managing the translation of the CFP into the official languages of ADHO.[6] Efforts to expand the remit of the MLMC, in particular along the multicultural axis, have encountered friction on account of exactly that same multiculturalism. Diversity means different things to different people in different places at different times; there is no one size that fits all. As a result, ADHO’s recent public statements on political matters – the Statement on Black Lives Matter, Structural Racism, and Establishment Violence, and the Statement on the Invasion of Ukraine – took considerable time to finalize and receive approval because the COB had to negotiate significant regional and organizational differences, as well as reflect on ADHO’s own relationship to the matters the statements addressed. In the process, both statements changed markedly from their initial drafts, and the results may seem less satisfying to some than similar statements emitted by individual organizations with more convergent perspectives, yet the process of negotiation allowed the international DH community to take a joint public stand on these matters. There have been in the past conflicts around diversity that have had very unhappy outcomes, yet diversity has been established, including through use of the word in the conference themes for DH2012 and DH2022 as well as community conferences, as a persistent priority within the DH community for more than a decade now, and continues to be pursued through other initiatives.

Recognizing that the need for thoughtful consideration of diversity, equity, and inclusion go beyond the remit of any extant organizational structure, in 2021 ADHO put out a call for volunteers to serve on an anti-racist, anti-discriminatory task force, formed in 2022 as the Intersectional Inclusion Task Force (IITF).[7] The group’s mandate is to advise and assist, with a focus on the impact of ADHO’s policies and activities on individuals, in organizational change to ensure that its governing bodies, events, and publications fully reflect the diversity of its Constitutent Organization members. IITF is also advising ADHO as we work to combat the inequalities and all forms of discrimination that exclude groups or individuals from academic endeavors. The IITF is composed both of individuals with a history of ADHO engagement and members of the broader digital humanities community. The IITF liaison has an open invitation to EB and COB meetings in a non-voting role. The work of the recently-formed ad-hoc ADHO Identity Project[8] will inform the work of the IITF by providing context of a shared understanding of what ADHO is and whom we serve.

In this same spirit, we believe that for ADHO to “rethink the point of the conference through the perspective of diversity, equity, inclusion and decolonization” [Estill et al. 2022, §5] as suggested by the article, we must first find common ground among the COs about the nature, priorities, and values of ADHO, and how the conference manifests (or should manifest) those priorities and values. Ideally, this common ground should draw from perspectives beyond exclusively those of the CO representatives, but ADHO has little leverage to ensure that COs engage with their members on these topics, beyond counting on their goodwill and buy-in and providing the necessary time for them to do so. Where the article lays out a set of dichotomies for the conference – “justice rather than merit, equity rather than innovation, polyvocality rather than canons, differences rather than standards, and inclusion rather than gatekeeping” [Estill et al. 2022, §5] – we believe that framing these issues as binary choices whereby ADHO must pick a side is more likely to contribute to disagreements than foster a productive dialogue that is sensitive to the differences in cultures and priorities among the COs. We expect, however, that finding a common ground in articulating the nature, priorities, and values of ADHO will provide guidance to us for reevaluating many aspects of the conference and the organization overall, from refining criteria for accepting papers, to the choice of keynotes, to how much funding to allocate for labor vs. bursaries vs. awards.

Many of the article’s suggestions for things such as accessibility audits or a study of the labor associated with the conferences are excellent. Indeed, the labor implications associated with greater transparency are one of the greatest challenges faced by ADHO as an organization led and run by volunteers. Relatedly, the Conference Protocol reflects attempts to clarify gray areas of responsibility, in an endeavor to reduce the labor involved in negotiating those guidelines individually, year after year. This attempt to reduce labor in one way has had the consequence of increasing it in another way, through the need to read, understand, and follow a set of protocols of considerable complexity.

Some suggestions, for instance the development and implementation of a preservation policy, have been recognized as highly desirable for years. Significant progress has been made with respect to the book of abstracts, with abstracts being indexed from 2006 onwards in the Index of Digital Humanities Conferences (a “labour of love” seed-funded by ADHO but built entirely by volunteers). Other aspects are more challenging and, given the financial realities of ADHO, they are unlikely to be realized without significant volunteer engagement. There is interest among members of the COB to develop policies on data gathering and analytics; on public sharing of reports, going forward; and on data management, beyond the published abstracts, related to the conference. This is another area that requires negotiation across different sets of cultural expectations and practices, in addition to legal matters, since privacy regimes and intellectual property considerations vary across the world and are difficult to solve after the fact for legacy data. While it may be possible to agree on a new set of practices for conferences moving forward (and note here, again, a possible significant lag time for changes to become visible), retroactively applying those practices to previous years’ data would require additional labor. Even once a new set of policies are in place, if they represent more work on top of what is already done (e.g. through preparing the book of abstracts), we will need to consider where the labor comes from to implement those policies year after year. It is likely to involve ongoing data stewardship responsibilities to handle issues such as takedown requests, name-change requests, and similar needs.

As the article highlights, one of the most intractable issues here is the amount of volunteer labor, over a significant period of time, involved in producing the conference – a timeframe considerably longer than what is involved in offering a more local or regional conference. There has been awareness of this for some time and an attempt to deal with it in the current protocol particularly with regard to PC chairs and CCC chairs. Attempts to ensure people taking on these roles are aware of the workload and confirm that they have institutional support only go so far, informing volunteers of the conference’s heavy demands on time, but not doing much to mitigate them. ADHO’s requirement that the organizers must have institutional support does limit those who can take on the role, but seems like the only ethical stance given the demands of the conference.

Looking toward other large organizations – including organizations-of-organizations like the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) – we see more paid staff and the use of professional organizers to reduce the volunteer burden in running the organization and putting together the conference. This is made possible through (sometimes considerably) higher fees both for membership and conference registration. While DH2019 was criticized for its high registration fees (€375 for ADHO members), IFLA’s fees were significantly higher (at €605 for IFLA members).

The alternative to higher fees is other sources of income, and the revenue from paid subscriptions to Digital Scholarship in the Humanities (DSH) – which has been practically the sole source of ADHO’s funding and annual financial distribution to its COs – is in no way guaranteed to continue to be stable going into the future. This is the reason why ADHO has incorporated a “service fee” into its financial model to prepare for the possibility that COs may need to contribute funding to ADHO if the organization’s expenses outstrip the income from DSH. This, in turn, will lead to a legitimate desire for greater CO oversight on ADHO expenses. If the result of that oversight is to lead to anything other than cutting ADHO costs to the absolute minimum, the COs need to have a shared understanding about ADHO’s purpose, goals, priorities, and values. We hope that the ad-hoc ADHO Identity Project will guide the organization to such an understanding before ADHO’s costs exceed journal revenue. Here, too, however, we anticipate a tension between respecting differences in cultural practice and the desire to reduce volunteerism (with its concomitant limits on diversity in participation) as some CO members come from academic cultures that are not comfortable with, or make it legally impossible, to accept remuneration outside of their university salary. The current model, where only a few ADHO positions are remunerated (Communications Fellows, website translators, the IITF members receive very modest stipends, and a systems administrator is paid by the hour), raises concerns from multiple camps. It will be revisited by the COB in the upcoming year, now that we have formally established a cohort of CO treasurers who can help shape these discussions.

Some aspects of conference organization are inherently more rewarding than others. Shaping conversations within the field, bringing together a community, and cultivating both the current and the next generations of scholars should be invigorating and satisfying on some level. However, academic service is a gendered activity within and beyond ADHO and is pervasively devalued, a challenge further intensified when those performing service are women. ADHO is very limited in what it can do to change the culture around service where it matters most for people: within their disciplines, fields, and institutions. Nonetheless, if the net impact on the organizers of so many instantiations of the ADHO conference is the degree of dissatisfaction and alienation described by the authors of the article, then ADHO must both take responsibility and take action, at the level where its organizational and financial decisions will have consequences for future organizers.

Although we recognize that the focus of the article is on systemic practices and policies, we want to also acknowledge the personal, often gendered, experiences of bullying, harassment, and denigration mentioned in it that have contributed to the sense of alienation, burnout, and of negative personal and professional impacts from involvement in the organization of the conference. Such oppressive behaviors are completely unacceptable. While the article highlights the downsides of ADHO’s organizational tendency to address problems by adding more policies, the lack of conflict-resolution and appeals mechanisms within ADHO’s expansive policies is an oversight that must be addressed promptly. We aim to develop and implement such a policy as soon as possible. We also aim to broaden the code of conduct, in consultation with the IITF, and to include a conflict resolution mechanism.

As an increasingly global organization dedicated to the promotion of DH across different cultures – ever more widespread geopolitical local cultures and quite diverse academic cultures – ADHO faces the challenge and the exciting prospect of negotiating among diverse perspectives to establish priorities and advance initiatives. As the article illustrates, the process of change within ADHO has been a slow and an uneven one, in part because of considerations like governance structures and available volunteer time, but in part also because of the recognition that there is not one single right position on every matter nor a single position that will satisfy every CO, or every member of the DH community, equally.

For instance, the question of multilingualism is a very vexed one on which there are very strongly held, divergent views as to the right course. Some believe passionately that ADHO conferences should have substantial multilingual components; others feel that the present policy, which allows for paper proposals and presentation in English, French, Spanish, Italian and German, introduces a hierarchy, in privileging these over other languages, that is more problematic than a monolingual conference, given the increasing availability of conferences in these languages.

These and other views are reasoned and principled perspectives emerging from different intellectual frameworks, local contexts, and cultural histories. When ADHO is confronted with such controversial matters, time and care are required to negotiate among real, legitimate differences amongst COs and to seek ways forward that, while in some cases not equally acceptable to all, are acceptable enough that the Alliance can continue. These discussions are slowed further if COs take the time to engage their membership, rather than reflecting the voice of only the CO’s representative to ADHO. Since those members may someday also step into the role of CO representative, taking time to build a broader consensus in the community is essential.

Dialogue and careful listening, as well as sound governance structures, solid processes, and checks against abusive behavior, are all required to negotiate differences respectfully within a global alliance of diverse organizations. Although in ADHO’s current financial situation these require people to come forward and invest substantial time and care, the need to negotiate difference is in itself a sign of increasing diversity. The COB, EB, and other officers are working to make ADHO a space in which diversity and other aims can be advanced for the DH community globally, and we are working together to better articulate those aims and our values. Aware that ADHO’s policies and processes are far from perfect, we hope to learn how to do better from the COs, from the broader DH community, and from other organizations similar in structure to ADHO, in order to continue to offer our communities the benefits of the conference while minimizing negative effects on volunteers.

We are deeply grateful to those past and present who have stepped forward to give generously of their time to ADHO as an organization, and, in particular, to the co-authors of this article who have shared their insights into the important challenges and opportunities for improvement in the conference that their particular experiences have afforded. We are also thankful to those who have stepped forward and shared the positive experiences they have had working for a DH conference and the ways that work has contributed to their professional growth. We are committed to taking steps from our positions within ADHO to ensure that the conference better serves the global DH community, and that ADHO does right by those who are willing and able to volunteer as organizers.

In closing, we extend to the reader an invitation to reframe their conception of ADHO as a distant “them” that produces and adheres to a complex set of rules and processes, and instead think of it as a revolving cast of “us,” since many individuals have held multiple roles in ADHO over the years. There is very little of ADHO that exists as a separate bureaucracy – rather, ADHO is an attempt to coordinate and collaborate across the cultural and linguistic gaps that separate COs, which are themselves made up of regional, linguistic, or structural groups of “us.” ADHO can and will strive to become a more transparent, inviting, and rewarding space in which to collaborate with others in shaping the international DH community, but ultimately it can only do better if COs engage in making it better. COs can only engage with ADHO if people in their communities advocate for that involvement, and can offer the time to make it happen. On one hand, it would be vastly more straightforward if ADHO were a clear group of “them” that could be lobbied for change. At the same time, however slow the process for getting there, the form ADHO takes in the future is in the hands of the people who get involved and who together imagine and implement the international DH organization they would like to see.

Originally conceived as a partnership between the North America-based ACH and the European EADH (at the time ALLC) to host an international conference, ADHO has grown rapidly in recent years, from 2 to 11 Constituent Organizations between 2005 and 2022, with several more applications pending. An organizational structure appropriate for two large sub-organizations is poorly suited to serve over five times that number. Beginning with the decision in 2013 to undertake a strategic review of our structure and governance, ADHO undertook a complete organizational restructuring, the final implementation details for which are scheduled to be completed by the end of 2022.[9] Working through the implications of that restructuring – everything from arranging bank access to establishing a non-profit in the Netherlands and revising representation, voting, and financial protocols – has been a major concern of those who served on ADHO’s Steering Committee, and many volunteers from beyond it, over the last decade. While significant attempts have been made by the CCC to address procedural matters through revision of the protocol, most recently in 2022, overall these issues have taken a back seat to the organizational changes. In 2019, the reorganization created the parallel structures of the policy-making COB and the EB, which carries out the day-to-day running of ADHO, a division of responsibilities that makes it easier for the COB to direct its attention to the big-picture challenges, priorities, and future directions for ADHO, confident that the EB is handling the operational work of the organization.

The near-completion of the reorganization and the clarification of roles and responsibilities within ADHO have created space for the ADHO COB to reflect on the issues with the conference as raised by this article, as well as other fundamental questions about ADHO, including who the organization is for, what we do, how we engage with COs and their members, and what ADHO’s values and priorities are. Even more broadly, ADHO’s role in running the international conference, sponsoring journals, and adjudicating awards comes with an implicit but ill-defined responsibility to the DH community made up of individuals within the COs, as well as those with no CO affiliation. As a step towards establishing and articulating a shared understanding of how ADHO should answer these fundamental questions, as of fall 2022 we have established an ADHO ad-hoc Identity Project that will begin by interviewing CO representatives about their perspectives on what ADHO is, what we should be doing, and how effectively the systems established by the reorganization distribute power throughout the Constituent Organisations.

As noted in the Background section (§17-§20) of the article, one of the most challenging aspects of organizing the conference results from the extensive policies governing it. The Conference Coordinating Committee (CCC) maintains these policies and oversees their implementation in specific instances of the conference. The Local Organizers are responsible for hosting, logistical management, and finances, and the Program Committee (PC) for the academic program. After conference bids have been prepared by the prospective LOs and then refined in consultation with the CCC, the COB (formerly the Steering Committee) selects the host institution and hence the LO committee prior to the formation of the PC. The host CO is usually[10] determined by the geographic location of the conference rather than assigned, and historically the LOs are determined through the bidding process, with a separate process for selecting the Chairs for the PC, which is composed of representatives from all COs. This practice not only results in “gray areas” of responsibility, as noted, but also overlaps that indeed make essential “Cooperation, communication, and goodwill” (§19) and increase the potential for conflict if the LOs and the PC chairs do not work well together, as has sometimes been the case. The LO/PC division of responsibilities lies at the root of a number of recurrent problems flagged in the article. To address this issue, ADHO is currently redefining the process for nominating PC chairs to better include the perspective of the LOs, in order to more effectively promote coordination and compatibility from the earliest stages of planning.

The coordination of roles and responsibilities associated with the conference has been, as the article notes, rendered very challenging by the fact that historically the Local Organizers (LOs), the Program Committee (PC), and the CCC all ran in parallel with some cross-representation. Recognition of the need to bridge the gap between different activities has led to multiple changes including deliberate overlapping and historical continuity in the composition of the groups.[11] Until 2019-20, the CCC was composed of representatives from each CO plus a chair appointed by the COB, and it operated quite independently from the PC and LOs. However, to address concerns raised by past conferences, since 2021 it has been transformed to a smaller, more streamlined group made up of a Chair and Chair-Elect, with an Incoming Chair-Elect to ensure further continuity, with each person spending one year in each role over a three-year period. The current conference protocol reflects these changes.