Technology of recovery

CTL-E-6354 · Practice · other · 2016–present

VERIFIED evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)

Combined Graph record U-07540 · provenance: build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-6354.

"Technology of recovery" is Kim Gallon's concept for the work that undergirds Black digital scholarship, introduced in her essay "Making a Case for the Black Digital Humanities" in Debates in the Digital Humanities 2016. Gallon defines it by efforts to bring forth the full humanity of marginalized peoples through digital platforms and tools. Recovery, she writes, rests at the heart of Black studies, a tradition that seeks to restore the humanity of Black people lost and stolen through systemic global racialization. Recovering lost historical and literary texts should therefore be foundational to the Black digital humanities. The enterprise is deeply political: it incorporates Black voices and centers African American and African diasporic experience, and it recovers alternate constructions of humanity historically excluded from the concept of the humanities itself.

Notes

STAGING: temp id EB-10. TYPING FLAG: proposed type Topic is not in schema.json; typed Practice/other — for the classification sitting. The essay title is sometimes miscited without 'the' ('Making a Case for Black Digital Humanities'); the published title carries 'the.' CURATOR'S JUDGMENT (DRAFT): If archival silence (EB-09) is the diagnosis, this is the treatment — and the working method of SlaveVoyages, Enslaved.org, and the South Side Home Movie Project in this same packet.

Relationships

• Black Digital Studies — related to
  Gallon defines the technology of recovery as the work that 'undergirds black digital scholarship' — the practice-side engine of the field recorded at EB-01.
• Kim Gallon — related to
  'Technology of recovery' is Kim Gallon's concept, defined in her essay 'Making a Case for the Black Digital Humanities' (Debates in the Digital Humanities 2016).

Referenced by

• Archival silence — related to → this record

Sources

• Gallon, Debates in the Digital Humanities 2016 (accessed 2026-10-29): 'This tension is enacted through what I call a "technology of recovery," characterized by efforts to bring forth the full humanity of marginalized peoples through the use of digital platforms and tools.'; 'Recovery rests at the heart of Black studies, as a scholarly tradition that seeks to restore the humanity of black people lost and stolen through systemic global racialization. It follows, then, that the project of recovering lost historical and literary texts should be foundational to the black digital humanities.'; 'Here, I seek to set in motion a discussion of the black digital humanities by drawing attention to the "technology of recovery" that undergirds black digital scholarship, showing how it fills the apertures between Black studies and digital humanities.' (primary source · build store)
• Foreman & Casey, Scholarly Editing 43 (accessed 2026-10-29): 'In her foundational 2016 Debates in Digital Humanities essay, "Making a Case for the Black Digital Humanities," Kim Gallon examines the question of "how humanity is framed in the digital humanities"' (build store)
• LifexCode / Keywords for Black Louisiana (accessed 2026-10-29), quoting Gallon: 'This tension is enacted through what I call a "technology of recovery," characterized by efforts to bring forth the full humanity of marginalized peoples through the use of digital platforms and tools.' (build store)

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Record CTL-E-6354 · Combined Graph record U-07540 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 3 sources · 3 mapped relationships.
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Researched and maintained by the CultureTechLens research program · CultureTechLens Combined Graph, Release 2026-11-04. Corrections are public: the corrections log.

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