Defining what Digital Humanities(DH) is might be unnecessary because not every DH project has to share the same theoretical foundation. Instead, they have “family resemblances” within the structure of praxis in the sense that they provide the community with open space for discovering, rethinking, learning, and interacting. The theme of each DH project varies according to its specific interests, location, language, culture, and the infrastructure it has now; thus, I believe that “Openness” should be a key pillar to digital scholarship in both dimensions – epistemology and practice.     

Colored Conventions Project (CCP) is a good example as it has certain features:   

1. Epistemic Justice & Sovereignty: CCP clarifies the principles and goals of its work; that is, rediscovering and understanding devalued and underrepresented Black history and voices. Especially by affirming “Black women’s centrality to nineteenth-century Black organizing,” the project reshapes epistemic sovereignty: (a) what we need to know; (b) who must be included; and (c) how it should be done.   
2. Open online access & Interplay: All the materials, information, and digital records they use for the project are open to the audience on the website. Plus, CCP encourages users to actively interact with and participate in the project by accepting newly found records that are not featured in the project yet. (The website specifies the records needed.) In addition, each section on the website is closely related and users are able to find the contents they need very easily as they navigate the site.   
3. Pedagogical approaches: The project offers teaching guides through which the user can freely use and teach the materials in K-12/AP/College classes. Each chapter has a separate curriculum for K-12 and AP/College Classes with the use of diverse approaches to audiences – 1) Resources, Methods, Questions, and Standards for K-12, and 2) Questions, Class Activity, and Example for AP/College Classes. With this attempt to offer educational support, CCP is linking its ongoing work to the present and future.     

What I noticed from CCP is its localness. The project narrows down its research interests and subject. When embracing the localness of a certain community and the research (In the case of CCP, the project focuses on Black organizing movement history that occurred from 1830 to the Civil War), there could be the danger of sacrificing its interconnectivity with others. However, through the open structure of the inquiry and research, CCP gives users an opportunity to critically engage with the project and other participants.  

It is obvious that without breaking the dominant structure of academia, which has been hierarchical, exclusive, and Western-centered, it is almost impossible to attain and secure epistemic plurality in DH. In this regard, the argument about “becoming undisciplined” echoes deeply in the field of DH. Nonetheless, we must recognize the limits of our knowledge that is only achievable on a particular given condition. Epistemic delinking, in this sense, would be a hasty step, just like pitching “The Big Tent”. Instead, I believe, as CCP shows us, we need many small tents with more localness and openness in themselves. This should be the first step for DHers to take toward the expanded community of digital scholarship.