The Digital Humanities and Spatial Data Science (DHSDS) department at CEDEJ is an interdisciplinary working group. It brings together resources and skills at the crossroads of the humanities (which study human societies and knowledge), and Data Science (which includes all technologies and methods used to collect, analyze and interpret data). The aim is to promote the use of digital tools and data analysis techniques in the humanities and social sciences. This department works on various projects using quantitative and qualitative methods to better understand the spatialization of human and social phenomena. It aims to enrich research practices and the dissemination of knowledge in the human and social sciences through the use of digital tools, which allow it to process large quantities of data, create new forms of research and share results with a wide audience.

The department’s research programs are collaborative, involving researchers in the humanities and social sciences and staff: librarians, statisticians, archivists, geography lecturers, geomaticians and data science specialists (engineers, developers and technicians in Geographic Information Systems, statistical analysis or archiving).

The main objectives of the department’s  work are centered around :

– The analysis and management of large quantities of socio-spatial data, providing both innovative tools and new methodologies.

– The preservation and dissemination of research results via digital platforms and online archives.

– The creation of new research objects such as designing collaborative online editors or interactive databases that enable innovative explorations of sources.

The DHSDS department oversees cooperation with two Egyptian partners: the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) and the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, within the framework of agreements signed with the CNRS. A new cooperation is opening up with the Egyptian National Research Institute of Astronomy and Geophysics (NRIAG).

Research programs :

1. The Dynamic and Interactive Atlas of Egypt in collaboration with CAPMAS. Following on from the web portal created in 2019 (cedejcapmas.org), which presents Egyptian population census data, this new project aims to develop a geostatistical observatory that can produce customized territorial profiles and interactive thematic and statistical online mapping. This observatory features intuitive navigation and spatial selection tools, statistical analyses, dashboards, etc. The observatory’s current operations make it a living, evolving tool that integrates new indicators, allowing it to configure their output and define geographic levels of analysis.

    

2. URDESANC (Urbanization of the Desert and Sanitary Challenges in Cairo) and “Cairo Sonotopes: grasping the socio-spatial dynamics of the city’s emerging margins”– Olivier Pliez.
   With a population of over 22 million, Cairo is an atypical example of a fundamental trend: the urbanization of deserts. This work stems from the hypothesis that urbanization takes place in extreme conditions, which it simultaneously increases. The aim of the project is to examine the active urban front in an arid zone, and to identify the health risks it generates as it advances. The project will bring together specialists of the environmental sciences, data sciences, and geosciences in a domain traditionally studied through the lens of the social sciences. To this end, the project will hybridize the methods used by the various disciplines by carrying out joint surveys with an emphasis on the territorial dimension of risks in the chosen sites.

3. GEOVINODE (Pilot Geoportal of New Cities of the Egyptian Desert, a tool to analyze sustainable development policies in the Global South) is an emerging research project on new cities located in the Egyptian desert. Using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, this project will examine day-to-day practices of these environments rather than their construction process, which is already well documented. The aim of the project is to create a web portal offering an interactive mapping of peripheral new urban areas, to reveal historical settlement dynamics, social stratification, home-work mobility, and the structuring role of malls and leisure areas in the organization of urban space. The ultimate aim is to create a simulation model for the growth and working processes of Cairo’s suburbs.
4. Massive data digitization programs: In partnership with the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, the Digital Humanities department is setting up programs for the digitization of massive data: CEDEJ’s 40-year press archives (cedej.bibalex.org), CEDEJ’s collection of political cartoons, and CEDEJ’s public domain library holdings. These activities have led to the creation of several open-access web portals, designed as documentary research tools. In addition to these programs, the Digital Humanities department is implementing CEDEJ’s new catalog in Marc 21 “MAchine-Readable Cataloguing” format, a mature, highly standardized system. Finally, the DHSDS department manages CEDEJ’s cartotheque, both in its physical version (maps archived at CEDEJ) and via an online catalog with overview and archiving reference (cedejcarto.org).
5. DHSDS department is taking part in the Arch-Écho project run by the Haute École de Gestion de Genève. The project aims to design a pilot for monitoring and measuring the ecological costs of data, based on a study of the informational practices of creators and users throughout the data’s life cycle, using product life cycle analysis (LCA) (ISO 14040:2006). Several cases (research data, public archives…) will be studied in order to profile informational behaviors and  identify indicators facilitating the detection and measurement of energy-intensive practices. It will also suggest practices likely to reduce ecological costs, including methods, techniques, technologies and strategic choices.