Of the methods that Burdick and her compatriots identify, The Resemblage Project appears to be an example of Enhanced Critical Curation. This project seeks to outline fundamental human experiences from the personal histories of its participants in the form of short videos. It takes the form of a collection that is unified thematically as well as in format.
This project is well suited to Digital Humanities as it isn’t based around a linear progression of ideas. The pieces stand alone and can be taken in individually. Additionally, the digital nature of he project means that it can be expanded to include more stories. The project is meant to present stories of aging that exist outside what is viewed as the cultural default. As a result, each piece uses a similar template that is imprinted with the personal experiences of the maker; this means that the consumer of the media is also capable of being a producer, and the use of digital methods allows the collection to be easily expanded.
The project seeks to address several of the critiques laid out by D’Ignazio and Klein. Starting with the Matrix of Domination, Hegemonic power, the domain that contains oppression through culture, is responsible for upholding the more concrete forms of oppression. This is accomplished by creating dominant classes in society who are given the privilege of being the dominant perspective of that society. The dominant perspective is treated as the cultural default which is problematic. The project is made expressly to provide a platform to aging stories that exist outside of the dominant culture. By identifying the existence of the dominant perspective and explicitly focusing on stories from outside it, the project is conscious of social bias and proactively against it. the project also is insulated from privilege hazard as it is made up of a diverse group who are speaking to their own experiences. By doing so they quite literally the standard for “empiricism of lived experience”. The project is itself counter data. It is important to clarify that this project isn’t demonstrative of a failing in D’Ignazio and Klein’s critiques as much as it is an example of what digital media ought to be. Rather than ignoring the possibility of cultural bias it is conscious of the social conditions under which it exists and how said conditions affect similar works. The project is an antidote of sorts to the problems Data Feminism lays out.
