In a conceptual and disciplinary map of the digital humanities, the encounters described above and the examples cited earlier would be distributed over a rather diverse territory. One important, distinguishing parameter is how different perspectives and initiatives relate to information technology and the digital. For example, as we have seen, traditional humanities computing tends to have a rather instrumental relationship to information technology, which serves primarily as a tool, whereas a cultural or media studies-based approach is more likely to focus on digital culture and the cultural construction of information technology as a study object.
Interdisciplinarity solves some of these problems, I think. Rather than viewing the "digital" and the "humanities" and separate entities that we are trying to reconcile, perhaps there is value in addressing them as partners in addressing a unique problem according to its inherent complexities. The interesting question becomes, then, not which discipline owns the problem, but what kinds of relationships are required to understand it.
This perspective aligns closely with the work of Julie Thompson Klein. In her foundational text, Interdisciplinarity: History, Theory, and Practice, Klein (1990) argues that “Interdisciplinarity is a means of solving problems and answering questions that cannot be satisfactorily addressed using single methods or approaches” (p. 196). Currently, this is the perspective that I maintain. Interestingly, this article and work on interdisciplinarity seem to have emerged around the same time. Perhaps this represents a societal as well as an academic turning point. As social, technological, and cultural problems became increasingly complex, traditional disciplinary boundaries may have become less capable of addressing them independently, creating a need for collaborative and interdisciplinary approaches to knowledge preservation and production.
References
Klein, J. T. (1990). Interdisciplinarity: History, theory, and practice. Wayne State University Press.