# For Whom and For What Purpose? A Position Paper on Digital Humanities and AI in African Studies - **Type:** Working paper - **Authors:** Frédérick Madore, Vincent Hiribarren, Agata Błoch, Albrecht Hofheinz, Ashleigh Harris, Augustin Ndione, Britta Frede, Cassandra Mark-Thiesen, Duncan Money, Emmanuel Ngue Um, Érika Melek Delgado, Fallou Ngom, Fu’ad Lawal, Irene Mwendwa, James Yékú, Janeth David Nzenga, Johannes Sibeko, Karen Byera Ijumba, Kọ́lá Túbọ̀sún, Leah Junck, Menno van Zaanen, Nuraddin Aman, Oumou Sidibé, Susan Elizabeth Gagliardi and Thompson Gyedu Kwarkye - **Series:** ZMO Programmatic Texts - **Issue:** 16 - **Publisher:** Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient - **Place:** Berlin - **Date:** 2026 - **Pages:** 24 - **Language:** English - **DOI:** [10.58144/20260827-000](https://doi.org/10.58144/20260827-000) - **Open access:** Yes - **Project:** [Digital Humanities and AI in African Studies](https://www.frederickmadore.com/research/dh-ai-african-studies.md) - **Tags:** Digital Humanities, Artificial Intelligence, African Studies, Large Language Models, African Languages, Digital Archives, Decolonial Digital Humanities, Data Colonialism, Digital Sovereignty, Minimal Computing - **Web page:** https://www.frederickmadore.com/publications/for-whom-for-what-purpose-dh-ai-african-studies-2026 ## Reference Frédérick Madore, Vincent Hiribarren, Agata Błoch, Albrecht Hofheinz, Ashleigh Harris, Augustin Ndione, Britta Frede, Cassandra Mark-Thiesen, Duncan Money, Emmanuel Ngue Um, Érika Melek Delgado, Fallou Ngom, Fu’ad Lawal, Irene Mwendwa, James Yékú, Janeth David Nzenga, Johannes Sibeko, Karen Byera Ijumba, Kọ́lá Túbọ̀sún, Leah Junck, Menno van Zaanen, Nuraddin Aman, Oumou Sidibé, Susan Elizabeth Gagliardi and Thompson Gyedu Kwarkye. (2026). “For Whom and For What Purpose? A Position Paper on Digital Humanities and AI in African Studies”. ZMO Programmatic Texts 16. Berlin: Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient. https://doi.org/10.58144/20260827-000 ## Abstract African Studies scholars have been involved in Digital Humanities (DH) projects since the 2000s. Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI), particularly large language models (LLMs), have expanded the possibilities for textual analysis and archival research, but implementation raises difficult questions: who controls access, whose data trains these systems without consent, whose languages remain underserved, and who bears the labour and environmental costs. This position paper is the collective work of a Volkswagen Foundation-funded scoping workshop in Hanover, Germany, in February 2026, with twenty-six scholars from sixteen countries. Across four working groups – language technologies; archives and visual heritage; infrastructure, governance, and access; and epistemologies, decoloniality, and ethics – one question recurred: for whom and for what purpose is this work undertaken? Ownership and sovereignty, access, sustainability, and standardisation emerged as transversal problems, which we set in dialogue with critiques of data colonialism and extractivism. We propose situated practices: licensing that conditions openness on return to source communities; digitisation agreements as living documents; ontologies built collaboratively; design grounded in access, governance, and sovereignty; and ethics treated as a process rather than a deliverable. Many of the problems we examine are common across DH and AI: consent, standardisation that erases variation, algorithmic bias, hidden labour, and the funding of innovation over maintenance. African contexts make them sharper and more visible, and Africa-based practice has produced concrete responses. We therefore argue that African epistemologies and decolonial critique belong at the centre of both fields, and that African scholars, practitioners, and institutions belong where these technologies are designed and governed. ## Links - [Source](https://doi.org/10.58144/20260827-000) ## BibTeX ```bibtex @techreport{for-whom-for-what-purpose-dh-ai-african-studies-2026, title = {For Whom and For What Purpose? A Position Paper on Digital Humanities and AI in African Studies}, author = {Frédérick Madore and Vincent Hiribarren and Agata Błoch and Albrecht Hofheinz and Ashleigh Harris and Augustin Ndione and Britta Frede and Cassandra Mark-Thiesen and Duncan Money and Emmanuel Ngue Um and Érika Melek Delgado and Fallou Ngom and Fu’ad Lawal and Irene Mwendwa and James Yékú and Janeth David Nzenga and Johannes Sibeko and Karen Byera Ijumba and Kọ́lá Túbọ̀sún and Leah Junck and Menno van Zaanen and Nuraddin Aman and Oumou Sidibé and Susan Elizabeth Gagliardi and Thompson Gyedu Kwarkye}, year = {2026}, month = sep, abstract = {African Studies scholars have been involved in Digital Humanities (DH) projects since the 2000s. Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI), particularly large language models (LLMs), have expanded the possibilities for textual analysis and archival research, but implementation raises difficult questions: who controls access, whose data trains these systems without consent, whose languages remain underserved, and who bears the labour and environmental costs. This position paper is the collective work of a Volkswagen Foundation-funded scoping workshop in Hanover, Germany, in February 2026, with twenty-six scholars from sixteen countries. Across four working groups – language technologies; archives and visual heritage; infrastructure, governance, and access; and epistemologies, decoloniality, and ethics – one question recurred: for whom and for what purpose is this work undertaken? Ownership and sovereignty, access, sustainability, and standardisation emerged as transversal problems, which we set in dialogue with critiques of data colonialism and extractivism. We propose situated practices: licensing that conditions openness on return to source communities; digitisation agreements as living documents; ontologies built collaboratively; design grounded in access, governance, and sovereignty; and ethics treated as a process rather than a deliverable. Many of the problems we examine are common across DH and AI: consent, standardisation that erases variation, algorithmic bias, hidden labour, and the funding of innovation over maintenance. African contexts make them sharper and more visible, and Africa-based practice has produced concrete responses. We therefore argue that African epistemologies and decolonial critique belong at the centre of both fields, and that African scholars, practitioners, and institutions belong where these technologies are designed and governed.}, doi = {10.58144/20260827-000}, url = {https://doi.org/10.58144/20260827-000}, language = {English}, institution = {Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient}, address = {Berlin}, keywords = {Digital Humanities, Artificial Intelligence, African Studies, Large Language Models, African Languages, Digital Archives, Decolonial Digital Humanities, Data Colonialism, Digital Sovereignty, Minimal Computing} } ```