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#JojoDoodles of Pam drawn by Jojo Karlin (2023)

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Pam Lach (she/her) is the Digital Humanities Librarian at San Diego State University. She is Director of the Library’s DH Center and Co-Director of SDSU’s DH Initiative. Pam’s work is grounded in care and community building, critical and ethical applications of technology in research and teaching, and joyful processes/experimentation. With Liz, she is ACH co-Vice President/co-President Elect.

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Hand drawing of a white woman with brown hair and glasses. Next to her appear the words: shifting tech / center care

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What's one institutional harm you can work towards repairing?

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Pam and Liz meet for the first time in person! ASU, November 2025

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We are two digital humanities workers who engage in feminist praxis, relying on friendship as our organizational framework to refuse the pressures of extractive neoliberal productivity... We are in the process of developing a manifesto that uses our friendship as an experimental lens to explore ways that we, as digital humanists, can resist the managerial structures and contexts within which we undertake our work. If we take up friendship as a DH methodology, how can we then unravel the interconnected impulses of DH as an institutionalized entity within the neoliberal university, and in contrast, envision DH as potentially radical and liberatory? We propose that dialogues—multimodel explorations of written, spoken, and woven laughter, tears, and words—are a generative pathway that helps us trace our individual feminist lineages as they ran parallel, eventually intersected, and finally intertwined. These autoethnographic explorations help us to imagine new possibilities for liberatory, anti-management DH labor. An ongoing project, our creative presentation will provide an extra-institutional space to open up questions for consideration, suggest exercises for intention-setting, and explore techniques to divert the incessant/insatiable demands of the institution.

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Two white women standing next to each other in front of a large tree. The woman on the left has curly brown hair and is wearing sunglasses. She's got her arm around the woman on the right, who has long straight blond hair

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Two white women taking a selfie. The woman on the left has curly brown hair and is making a peace sign with her visible hand. The woman on the right has long straight blond hair. Both women have glasses and look extremely happy

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Gentle waves on a SoCal beach (Torrey Pines State Beach, May 2026).

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We envision our manifesto as a living thing that takes its shape in/with/through our interactions and conversations. Our manifesto attends to different questions of resistance and refusal depending on our intentions in that moment.

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Prototype of our anti-management card deck. Each card has a question written on it in black Sharpie. Several of these questions are already listed below. More will be added throughout #ACH2026.

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We invite you to contemplate the many questions we've been asking each other. You can offer an answer to one of our questions, or pose your own here by adding a new post.

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A pile of notecards in purple, green, pink and blue arranged messily on a black desk. Each card has a question written on it in black Sharpie. Our friendship rose quartz and 2 packs of tarot cards (ethical tech and academic) are visible in the background

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Liz, in front of art wall in Scottsdale, AZ.

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Liz Grumbach (she/her) is the Director of Operations and Research at the Cooperative Futures Institute in the Global Futures Laboratory at Arizona State University. She just started her new position this week (June 22, 2026). Previously, she worked as the Director of Digital Humanities in the ASU Lincoln Center for Applied Ethics. Her current research focuses on design justice and critical tech interventions that incorporate care practices, creativity, and community-driven research, even in/especially because of the rapid adoption of AI. With Pam, she is ACH co-Vice President/co-President Elect.

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a femme-presenting woman stands in the foreground. she has curled blonde shoulder length hair that covers half her face and large black glasses. in the background is an artwork made up of thousands of colored strings that make it a bit like an optical illusion spectrum of light is behind her.

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"I choose to use the word lineage, rather than the more academic “genealogy,” in order to step away from the Critical Theory framework of scholarly parentage. I have never been comfortable with the idea of a family tree of scholarship....I follow [adrienne maree] brown in reframing it as a way to locate our work within the family we choose." - Hannah Alpert-Abrams, "Finding Your Purpose: A Higher Calling workbook for justice-oriented scholars in an unjust world"

When Pam and I first started meeting to discuss friendship as a methodology, one of our earliest conversations turned to our academic lineage, the path that had led us to this healing and fierce friendship that fueled our collaborations.

We recommend: When you think of your academic lineage, trace the friendships, the heartache, the loss, and the triumphant joy that human connection in this profession has put on/in your path.

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A gif of a white woman with a high ponytail pointing to a person in the foreground with their back turned to the camera. The gif has text that reads what the woman is saying: "you just got yourself a mentor." This gif is definitely from a sitcom and is likely tongue-in-cheek.

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The Beast, "Beauty and the Beast" (1991)

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The Beast is a name we've occasionally given to the forces that seem to voraciously consume our time, erode our compassion, isolate us from each other. Whatever those forces might look like for you, imagine them as a singular entity (if possible) and think through the below questions.

1) What are all of the things you couldn’t do because the beast devours?

2) What are all of the things that the beast devours (present and past)?

3) What is one thing that you retain that the beast can't take or erode?

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Gif of the beast from the 1991 animated Disney film "Beauty and the Beast." He's attempting to smile, which looks like a scary grimace

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"Les Misérables Original London Cast" Ensemble

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"Les Misérables Original London Cast" Ensemble

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"Les Misérables Original London Cast" Ensemble

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The cards we drew before one of our many conversations about our living manifesto. In between is a rose quartz, gifted from Liz to Pam

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What rituals do you use to set intentions before a meeting or interaction?

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A wooden surface showing 6 tarot cards laid out in two rows of three. In between the two rows is an oval pink quartz stone

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It's important to wear fun socks while resisting burnout

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It's important to wear fun socks while resisting burnout

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I’ve spent the better part of a decade dreaming of opening a sock shop. In addition to selling fun, silly socks, I’d have socks and crafts and sock puppet theater. I’d also offer sock darning (something I need to learn how to do) and a sock donation program for unhoused folks.

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Two pairs of socks next to each other on a wooden table. The pair on the left is dark grey with a blue matchbook that reads burned out. There are lit matches surrounding the book. The pair on the right is light grey with green dumpsters burning. The heel and toes are solid green

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Working under the conditions of neoliberal manufactured scarcity, what's one way you can create a sense of abundance for yourself/your people?

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What's a hidden talent you have that your colleagues/peers don't know about you? How could you bring that into your work?

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What's one thing you can say no to/refuse right now, no apologies, no explanation?

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Academic Tarot is a project of the Visionary Futures Collective. Art is by VFC artist-in-residence Claire Chenette. Design is by Hannah Alpert-Abrams and Claire Chenette. 

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Academic Tarot Ritual - Pause to "Draw" a Card

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Academic Tarot Ritual - Pause to "Draw" a Card

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Play the video, pause at random, interpret the card based on your observations of the artwork, and how what you notice about the card may connect with how you are entering into the space, the meeting, the collaboration.

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Gif of the four Golden Girls moving in for a group hug

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Every conversation Liz and I have opens up new questions as well as new possibilities for how we can find a way forward. Each conversation affirms for me that my DH praxis is all about the relationships I create/nurture with my people. I've learned just how important it is to take time to enjoy being humans together.

Being friends with Liz has made me a better digital humanist AND a better human being.

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What's a way you've managed to navigate/work around institutional barriers and roadblocks?

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How can we add intentional time & space to pause and slow down? How can we build a regular practice of pausing & slowing down?

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How can we tend to our [broken] bodies under the neoliberal university's incessant demands for constant & rapid productivity?

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Thinking back to Miriam Posner's "Commit to DH people, Not DH projects," what's a way you can shape your work to make space for whole human beings who are living real and complicated lives?

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I am always obsessed with this set of cards for finding creative ways to overcome blocks. I love to use them to start writing and community sessions.

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Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies card set reimplemented as a dynamic web page.

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We are all located, as scholars and academic laborers, in an institutional model that expects exponential growth and constant change, even more so now with an increasing focus on (Gen)AI. And yet, we are not allowed to mourn and grieve things. How do we connect mourning, grief, and celebration in ways that feel respectful? How can we learn to move on without labelling that transition a "failure (derogatory)"?

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How can we make ourselves, our work, our lives visible in all of our imperfections? How can we strive for the kind of friction DH embraces and thereby undermine the neoliberal institutional demand for fast perfection?

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How can you care for someone without harming yourself or others? How can you, for instance, take something off of a friend's plate without adding to someone else's (or your own) plate? If the work is "essential" (and we can push back on the idea of essential work), how do we carry it forward in a caring way?

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I will, perhaps, share my collection of tarot at some point. But I also want to share my favorite cards to use during work hours. What sidequest will fate bestow upon me today?

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Video of the disco ball that is now a mainstay in Pam's DH Center. We use it during DH instruction sessions & project work days, and host dance parties!

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How do you try to infuse moments of joy into your work?

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How can we push back on forms of manufactured urgency & crisis that admin create as part of the neoliberal university? How do we discern manufactured emergencies from crises that require our care and attention?

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What if this were easier (for everyone)?

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What if this were easier (for everyone)?

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*"This" = situation, task, goal…

I don’t believe in laziness. I see it too often used to goad more productivity, urgency for profit at the expense of wellness. I see it get used to disrespect boundaries, rights, care; and frame a negative “you’re not enough” instead of a positive “is this a thing that I’d like to do more, and if so can I, how could I do that in a healthy way?”. I love the Nap Bishop’s work around rest as lacking, critical, liberatory.

And I don’t think it’s a helpful personal framing either! I think I got this from Kelsey Piper’s blogging: berating oneself for “laziness” often doesn’t address the real factors keeping you from doing a thing, when it is something you need or want to do (though also asking myself if I really do need to do something: what’s the real not hypothetical impact on me and others, vs. rest or other activities instead?). It just says “you’re immoral and you need to be more moral”; "try harder!", which is... not a clear path of how? why? with what energy & resources?

Instead, Piper suggests reframing things you use "lazy" for, around needing more “convenience”: how do I make this thing more convenient for me to do?

(Simple, low barrier, on my existing path, the easier option, fit into what I already do not what I wish I’d do…) This overlaps a lot with how folks talk about “urgency” as white supremacy (does this have to happen immediately, at the expense of health/other goals/stress, and in this specific way?).

This reframing of laziness to opportunity for better convenience has been effective & kind, for me. Instead of like “Why don’t I spend more time with my dog, who I love?” => ways I could do that most easily, like leaving out her toys so it’s easier to take a play break between work zooms. Or putting healthy snacks into individual containers, because I know I’ll grab a jar of carrot sticks but not scoop a bunch out of the wet bag even though "I should really just do that instead of continuing to let them rot uneaten". Or researching ways to do contribute to advocacy that best fit my availability & disability (and particular strengths!), like making spreadsheets or monitoring social media or civics zooms from home.

Things I’m thinking about related to this:

1. Money makes convenience easier: buy a thing. How can we avoid convenience as capitalism? What definition of convenience cares for everyone regardless of (and fighting) barriers of safety, financial security, other privileges?

2. When does my convenience unfairly mean another person’s increased burden? What is fair here? Is there a better word than “convenience” that helps us attend to communal impact and personal boundaries, not in an equal way but an equitable, always changing one? One that focuses on our strengths & desires, instead of lack or perceived demands?

3. How does disability justice help here: for disabled folks, and for all folks? How do we notice programmed beliefs about what is “easy” for some and not others (through various privileges too) playing into assumptions about what is communal good? (And capitalism—e.g. does “everyone should contribute” mean we should all serve stockholders or make sure every retail store stays open?)

Thank you Liz and Pam for this beautiful work!

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Things I’m thinking about related to this

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Could physical craft help folks who've been doing digital scholarship longer recapture the joyful, communally engaged, relief-from-traditional-tasks feelings hacking something did when we started?

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Could physical craft help folks who've been doing digital scholarship longer recapture the joyful, communally engaged, relief-from-traditional-tasks feelings hacking something did when we started?

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Brandon Walsh (sorry, this photo will live forever) asks our grad Praxis Fellows to teach analog intro-to-DH workshops to a small group of staff & colleagues each year, and each year everyone rediscovers the joy of hands-on making & "why don't we do this more often?!" (even though most of us craft! we have a critical humanities makerspace! but we don't always get to interweave that into most of our work days). tl;dr more collaging & macaroni & glue & googly eyes, pls

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Photo of Brandon Walsh holding up a collage of magazine photos of Harry Styles' face

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Photo of Brandon Walsh holding up a collage of magazine photos of Harry Styles' face

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Photo of a hacky stapled paper container containing three rocks with marker and googly eyes on them, and a yellow scrap of torn paper that says "good" on it in cursive.

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Photo of an open box of half a pizza next to a sheet of paper with marker text trying to make it look like a data viz. The paper says: "There are 3 pieces =>tradition. There are as many pieces as we choose (and have the tools to divide what we have into) => belief. There is enough for everyone => dream. We have the resources for there to be enough for all => knowledge. ...but we won't use them that way => power. ...yet => wisdom.

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How can we show up for each other in meaningful ways?

I work on a unionized campus, where faculty and staff are in different unions. I was just speaking with one of our facilities staff, who told me that the staff contract expires today, and they don't have a new contract. They're fighting hard for a better contract, and (as we had to do) might have to strike to get it. If they do, it will be at the start of the fall semester. Our library is fueled by poorly-compensated staff labor, and I will absolutely support them if they walk.

Whether you work at a unionized place or not, how can you show up for others? What work are you willing/able to pause or end in support of collective solidarity?

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How do you make time/space for celebrating the wins, no matter how small? I've always struggled to do this. I usually focus on the things that didn't go well (framing around how I can do better) or just moving on to the next thing. What are ways that we can make space for celebrating ourselves and the things we do, no matter how flawed they may be?

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Use this QR code/link to contribute to our Padlet (no login required)

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Use this QR code/link to contribute to our Padlet (no login required)

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https://tinyurl.com/anti-management-manifesto

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QR code of the link to this padlet. The link is included in the description of this post