Meet the Grantee: Professor Richard Toye
Decolonising Digital History: Challenges and Opportunities
Having grown up in the 1980s, Prof. Richard Toye from University of Exeter (UK) still took notes with paper and pencil and thus developed skills in focusing on what was really important. Today, as a Professor of Modern History, he wants to make a contribution to developing ethical research processes in a world of information overload. His Short Term Grant with his host, Prof. Astrid Swenson (European Historical Cultures), about “Decolonising Digital History: Challenges and Opportunities” aims to discuss how historians from the Global South are disadvantaged with regard to the use of digital sources.
Professor Richard Toye and Professor Astrid Swenson
If you had to explain the research project of your Short Term Grant to the person you metin the elevator, how would you describe it?
RT: The premise of the research is that these days, all historians make extensive use of digital sources, even if they don't recognize themselves as "digital historians." That is to say, they inevitably use digital library catalogues, for example, and if they consult a historic newspaper, the odds are that they will use a digitized version. Yet, the issues that arise from this practice are often not discussed. In fact, historians often shy away from them because they do not consider themselves sufficiently expert, even though they have everyday expertise in practice. Furthermore, there are broader implications from this extensive digitization of sources. Databases are often behind paywalls, which may create inequities of access. It's more than possible that scholars from the Global South are disproportionately disadvantaged. However, there are also opportunities, and the widespread availability of digitized sources raises the possibility of writing a genuinely global form of history.
Was there a special moment in your life that made you decide for your research focus?
RT: I became interested in history because, from an early age, I was fascinated by politics, particularly British politics. In due course, this became the focus of my PhD, which explored the Labour Party's economic policy of the 1930s and 1940s. As for my current project, I have always been aware that I belong to a generation that has witnessed the development of personal computers and their application in historical research up close. This is not something I take for granted because, as a child in the 1980s, I lived through what was then called the "microcomputer revolution." I benefited from the fact that, when I first started researching, it was still necessary to rely on paper catalogues and, generally speaking, on taking notes with paper and pencil. While I wouldn't want to go back to those days, it did help me develop my skills in focusing on what was really important in any given document, as you couldn't copy everything down. On special occasions, you might decide it was worth paying for photocopies, but that was rare.
What is in your opinion the future of your field? In what way can research in your field(s)contribute to meeting the urgent challenges of our time?
RT: One enduring challenge of our time is the question of whether or not we can rely on the information we receive, which naturally causes anxiety—particularly when that information is delivered electronically and can thus be easily manipulated. Understanding, in a forensic way, how to interpret a document is a crucial skill that young people need to be educated in. But it's not only young people—everyone needs to understand the implications of the technologies that are now so widespread. While I don't, of course, claim that my research will solve all of these problems by itself, I hope it can make a contribution to developing ethical research processes in a world of information overload.
AS: Beyond having to make an important contribution in criticality, I think history can help us learn about how to adopt to change and ambiguity. (Digital) Global History helps to sharpen our awareness for the origins of inequalities and many current crises and to think about how a historical perspective can help to address these.
What were your expectations when you applied for the Grant?
RT: When I applied for the grant, I had some general ideas about the directions in which my research would go, but I was very open to new approaches. This is where discussions with Professor Swenson and other colleagues, such as Dr. Cassandra Thiesen-Mark, were extremely helpful. I did a lot of reading, and in due course, we settled on the idea of a virtual roundtable with international scholars specializing in digitization. The results have now been submitted to the journal Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, and I'm eager to see the response it receives.
AS: When Richard Toye approached me about applying for the grant, I was exited by the opportunity to explore the relationship between digital and global history from our two distinct, yet complementary research areas. Having worked on the relation between local, national and international approaches to historical culture through the lense of architectural preservation and the looting/translocation of works of arts, I was particularly interested to explore how the digital turn allows to transcend borders and where national and language frameworks (in academia, archives, funding etc) remain strong.
If you could choose a famous researcher or scientist to have dinner with, who would it be?
RT: I would love to have dinner with Professor Quentin Skinner, the renowned historian of political thought. I have, in fact, met him at a conference, and he is as brilliant and witty as one would expect from reading his work. However, I've never had dinner with him. Maybe he will somehow read this and send me an invitation!
AS: As historians make up a fair proportion of my actual dinner guests, I would probably try to invite some historical figures operating at the boundary of scholarship, art and activism, maybe invite Olympe de Gouge, playwrite, abolitionist and authors of the first declaration of the rights of women during the French Revolution and C.L.R James, the Trinidadian historian, journalist, activist and author of Black Jacobins.
Have you noticed any differences or similarities between UBT and your home university?
RT: British and German universities are quite different. One thing you notice is that German professors actually receive resources and assistance—things that, to whatever extent they may have previously existed in the UK, have been progressively stripped back. Not that I expect that Exeter will provide me with an office in a castle, like the one that Prof. Swenson has! On the other side, one aspect I appreciate about British universities is that they are generally less hierarchical than their European counterparts. That said, I would like to emphasize that everyone at the University of Bayreuth was very open and friendly.
AS: Having returned to Germany after more than 20 year abroad, I agree and am grateful to the Humboldt Centre to create a space in which one can try to mix the best of both worlds.
The Grantee
Richard Toye is Professor of Modern History at the University of Exeter in the UK. He was previously a Fellow and Director of Studies for History at Homerton College, University of Cambridge, from 2002 to 2007, and before that he taught at University of Manchester from 2000. His books innclude Winston Churchill: A Life in the News (Oxford University Press, 2020) and, most recently, Age of Hope: Labour, 1945, and the Birth of Modern Britain (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2023).
Astrid Swenson is Professor of European Historical Cultures at the University of Bayreuth. She received her Ph.D from the University of Cambridge and previously taught in Cambridge, London and Bath. She writes on the construction of heritage, memory and museums in Modern Europe from a transnational and global perspective. Her publications include The Rise of Heritage in France, Germany and
England, 1789-1914 (Cambridge University Press 2013) and From Plunder to Preservation: Britain and the Heritage of Empire (edited with Peter Mandler, Oxford University Press, 2013).