Purpose of the Code of Conduct

The organisers of the Computational Humanities Research conference are committed to providing a safe and inclusive space, with respectful and equitable treatment for everyone. This code is meant to guide speakers, session chairs, organisers, attendees, and people who might be involved with the conference in other ways. It was inspired by the code of conduct of the BRIDGES 2022 conference published in bridges2022.com/code-of-conduct.

Approach and principles

This code draws on an intersectional perspective, considering the interlocking character of various dimensions such as gender, sexuality, race/ethnicity, class, age, disability, and religion/creed as axes of discrimination. The code revolves around the principles of prevention, detection, intervention, support, reparation, guarantees of non-retaliation, and non-repetition.

Not acceptable conduct at the Computational Humanities Research conference

The conference will not accept any form of inappropriate conduct, behaviour, act, practice, and interaction happening at both onsite and online events, whether verbal or physical.

The conference will understand as a violation and code breach the following forms of inappropriate conduct related to various dimensions such as gender, sexuality, race/ethnicity, class, age, disability, and religion/creed, which could take place in spaces, workshops, and other events: professional dishonesty; mistreatment; diminishing comments; derogatory jokes; hate speech; privacy violations; defamation; stalking; threatening; blackmailing; labour harassment; sexual harassment; unwanted, undesired, or unauthorized attention; assault.

Procedure

Principles. The conference is committed to the principles of accountability, responsiveness, confidentiality, transparency, resolution, and evaluation in case of incident-based reporting.

Reporting procedures. Any individual who experiences any of the aforementioned inappropriate conduct or any other kind of disrespectful or abusive treatment not identified in this code at the Computational Humanities Research conference can inform and report the incident to the conference’s Anti-discrimination Committee (see below for details). There are two anticipated procedures to register or report an incident:

1. During the conference: If during the conference you experience or witness any behaviour that violates our code of conduct, we encourage you to report it promptly to the Anti-discrimination Committee. Your report will be taken seriously and handled confidentially, and appropriate action will be taken to address the situation and ensure the safety and well-being of all participants.

2. At any time: Anonymous informal complaint. Anyone who feels disrespected, mistreated, discriminated against, offended, and/or abused, but does not want to reveal their identity, can submit an anonymous complaint following the form set up on the conference website. Anonymous complaints do not generate direct intervention or response but will help to keep track of the discriminatory dynamics taking place in conference spaces and events, allowing an increase in awareness.

Any consultation with a person from the Anti-discrimination Committee comes with an assurance of anonymity, unless or until the consent of otherwise is expressly given. Whoever receives anonymous complaints will pass them to the rest of the Anti-discrimination Committee, who will consider, record, and monitor the situation.

Conference Anti-discrimination Committee

The Anti-discrimination Committee is composed by the CHR Diversity and Inclusion Officer (Barbara McGillivray) and a member of the local organisation committee (Line Ejby Sørensen). Following its principles, the Committee will be in charge of the investigation, fact-finding, fact-checking, resolution (upheld or dismissed report), and action (support, arbitration, and sanction). If an individual from the Committee is involved in the complaint, that individual will be excluded from the procedure.

Feedback and evaluation

Through both the informal and formal complaint and reporting procedures, the conference will be able to weigh, analyse, and evaluate not only the applicability and impact of this Code of Conduct, but also the state of play with respect to equality, equity, and inclusivity in conference spaces, including in future editions of the conference and in the Society of Computational Humanities Research. This will allow designing and implementing better Action Plans against misconduct, harassment, discrimination, and other forms of abuse that might affect staff, participants, or collaborators.