#DHmakes: Baking Craft into DH Discourse

This paper traces the history and development of the collaborative #DHmakes initiative to bring crafts into the mainstream of Anglophone digital humanities, starting in 2022 but building upon earlier calls to bridge the maker / craft divide. It argues for the importance of this work within digital humanities as a way of reconnecting technology with its textile roots, while also recognizing the creative and intellectual potential found in feminine-coded craft praxis. The history of different phases within digital humanities is often poorly documented. By recording the development of this recent movement – already a challenge following a mass exodus from Twitter, where much of these conversations initially took place – this paper captures the origins of an important moment in the field, as “digital humanities” was coming to understand itself more capaciously than the “digital” alone would imply.