Digitized and born-digital cultural heritage: implications for digital humanities

Abstract

This paper critically reflects on the role and implications of the distinction between digitized and born-digital cultural objects within the field of digital humanities (DH). Although this distinction is well recognised, it does not appear to occupy a central position in current debates concerning the discipline's epistemological foundations. Through a selective critical review of key contributions in the literature, two main orientations emerge: on the one hand, an approach rooted in the tradition of humanities computing, primarily focused on data modelling methodologies; on the other, a perspective more attuned to born-digital objects, understood as new cultural practices and forms native to the digital environment. The paper emphasizes the importance of further investigating this distinction not only from a terminological perspective, but above all from a methodological and epistemological standpoint. It highlights the difference between secondary documents (digitized) and primary documents (born-digital), with the aim of contributing to a more nuanced understanding of the evolution of Digital Humanities.