USING DIGITAL METHODS TO ANSWER HUMANITIES QUESTIONS ABOUT MIGRATION

Abstrakti

This article examines how digital methods can strengthen replicability, reusability, and collaboration in humanities research while preserving the individuality of human subjects. Using Community in Motion — our project on the postwar dispersal of over 120,000 incarcerated Japanese Americans — as a case study, we address the challenges of working with extensive datasets, including War Relocation Authority records and the 1950 US Census. We demonstrate how algorithmic matching, supervised machine learning, and version control systems such as
Git enable error detection, workflow control, and scalable analysis. Additionally, we argue that digital methods, when adapted to humanities inquiry, can expand the reach and reliability of scholarship while keeping personhood at its center.