The Japanese Association for Digital Humanities (JADH) is pleased to announce its 15th annual conference, to be held at Kyushu University on September 11-13, 2026. Digital data do not exist in isolation. They come to life only within specific contexts of use, interpretation, infrastructure, and care. Following Jakob von Uexküll’s concept of Umwelt, this conference understands data as embedded in situated worlds of meaning—worlds shaped by disciplines, institutions, technologies, cultures, languages, and communities. Umwelt is the contextually constituted world in which data gain meaning through use and interpretation.
Under the theme “Whose World, Whose Data? Sustainability in Digital Umwelts,” this conference invites participants to rethink digital sustainability not simply as long-term preservation or technical endurance, but as a question of whose worlds are sustained, transformed, or allowed to fade through digital practices.