Digital Humanities and the Geopolitics of Knowledge

In this article I briefly discuss the connections between the geopolitical scenario emerging from the creation of the BRICS New Development Bank, and the digitization of languages and cultures carried out in a substantially Anglophone-driven economic and technological context. The appearance of the new BRICS bank, and especially the plan for an “independent Internet” are not only challenging the financial system, but in the long-run could also affect the current digital knowledge monopolies, activating new ways to encode and decode cultural objects, and challenge present digital standards. Digital Humanists, on all levels, are called upon to react to this developing geopolitical scenario, asking themselves questions about political representation and cultural diversity, encoding standards, digital infrastructures and linguistic hegemonies. An old equilibrium based on unequal power relationships is perhaps close to an end, and this is a unique time and opportunity to create a genuinely democratic and international scholarly community.