DíSCOLA: Digital Scholarship in Latin America

DíScoLA is SALALM's interest group in Digital Scholarship in Latin America. We formed at the 60th SALALM conference in June 2015 with three goals:

1. To explore what digital scholarship means in Latin American Studies,
2. To build skills and share knowledge about projects, tools and methods within the SALALM community, and
3. To raise SALALM's profile in this emergent area.

El propósito del grupo es:

1. Explorar el significado y papel de la investigación digital en Estudios de América Latina,
2. Habilitar a los miembros de SALALM con técnicas y conocimiento de los proyectos, herramientas y métodos de este disciplina, y
3. Elevar el perfil de SALALM en esta área emergente.

O objetivo do grupo é:

1. Investigar o significado e o papel das pesquisas digitais em estudos latino-americanos estudos da América Latina,
2. Habilitar os membros da SALALM em técnicas e conhecimento dos projetos, ferramentas e métodos desta disciplina, e
3. Aumentar o perfil do SALALM nesta área emergente.

To accomplish our goals, we have set up a Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/groups/SALALM.DiScoLA/. We also use the hashtag #diScoLA to share ideas and explore on various platforms.

We chose our name, DíScoLA, because Digital Scholarship (“DS”) is a term that is complex, elusive, and polysemic. It is a concept that can be difficult to comprehend and an emerging field that is still a work in progress. Because it has not found a definitive definition, the term is still a “rebellious” reality, reluctant or unwilling to be closely defined and framed. In other words, it is a “díscolo” term:

The Diccionario de la lengua española (Real Academia Española) defines “díscolo” as, “desobediente, que no se comporta con docilidad,” and the Diccionario de María Moliner adds, “indomable, rebelde, perturbador.”

Within this context, a group like DíScoLA aims to examine the concept, ramifications, and implications of Digital Scholarship as it evolves, still rebellious but opened to be explored.

List of workshops organized by DíScoLA

SALALM 2018: Apertura de las colecciones digitales a través de los Proyectos de la Fundación Wikimedia” Silvia Gutiérrez De la Torre, Aidee Murrieta, El Colegio de Mexico
SALALM 2017: Building open source webmaps using historical maps, Nicole Scholtz, University of Michigan
SALALM 2016: Using Neatline for interactive geo-temporal interpretation, Scholars' Lab, University of Virginia