The interdisciplinarity of digital humanities in Portuguese scientific production

Abstract

Abstract: The aim is to present the state of the art of Portuguese research in the Digital Humanities through a study of the publications deposited in Open Access Institutional Repositories in Portugal, from the years 2012 to 2020. The Digital Humanities embrace a new practice, a new paradigm of research in the Humanities. Being an emerging area in Portugal, several dynamics and projects have been affirmed, many researchers, affiliated to research institutions, already constitute an organized community with common purposes and goals, formalized in some universities, in research lines. A bibliographic research was carried out in the mentioned repositories and several types of documents were retrieved from 22 institutional repositories. Most are scientific articles followed by conference objects, book chapters. Regarding to the subjects and being the Digital Humanities transversal to various areas of knowledge, it was found that most of the retrieved works were within the scope of Information Science, followed by Literature and History. The conclusion is that the researchers are dispersed among the Arts and Humanities, Social Sciences and Technologies. The research lines are made up of collaborations between researchers, establishing networks and creating bridges between the Humanities and other Sciences, proving interdisciplinary. The relevance of collaborative work demanded by the Digital Humanities is verified, where specialists in digital and other technologies and tools help in their application to traditional research methods and the production of new knowledge in the Social Sciences and Humanities.