14.30 to 15.10    Paper presentation 15.20 to 16.30    GLOBALISE Workshop Paper Presentation The archives of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) documents two centuries of Dutch-Asian history and encounter. This corpus has till date serviced the writing of a limited but gradually expanding repertoire of histories. Nevertheless, the makeup of the archive is such that these archives, despite their remarkable potential, have not been optimally exploited to write global histories. GLOBALISE, an infrastructural project is working to make this seventeenth- and eighteenth-century archive more accessible. By converting five million pages of handwritten text into machine readable script, it renders these archives searchable. The project also contextualizes entities such as persons and places mentioned in the archives thereby making the archival content comprehendible and accessible to wider, non-Dutch audiences. In facilitating an unprecedented archival accessibility, the GLOBALISE project could redefine the nature of global histories that can be written using this corpus. Nonetheless, this endeavor also poses challenges. By critically assessing the project’s work thus far, this paper asks the following questions: What research possibilities does GLOBALISE throw open? What impact can it have on the writing of global histories? To what extent can global history writing be a global endeavor, and can plurivocality become the backbone of such initiatives? These questions will be foregrounded in concrete case-studies from migration history, and comparative histories of conquest that will utilize infrastructural components that the GLOBALISE project has developed thus far. Through these explorations, this paper will appraise the rapidly evolving global history landscape in the face of digitalization and changing research methodologies. Workshop Digital infrastructures are rapidly changing the way in which we research the past. What can it bode for the future of global history? This workshop will introduce currently available resources from GLOBALISE, a large-scale infrastructural project (2022-2026) based at the Huygens Institute, Amsterdam. This project integrates technological advancements in handwritten text recognition and natural language processing with meticulous historical contextualization to redefine how we could access the vast seventeenth- and eighteenth-century archives of Dutch East India Company (VOC). Scholars working on global history have much to gain from this increased accessibility to the VOC archives, which spans two centuries and covers a wide geographic range across maritime Asia and the Cape of Good Hope. The new infrastructure will render it easier to trace the movements of individuals, objects, and ideas across the Indian Ocean. It proposes to open up this rich archive to wider audiences, facilitating the writing of global, entangled, or comparative histories, and enabling explorations into underexplored themes. As the project is half-way home, this workshop will provide participants a first-look into the infrastructural components that have taken form, and open up discussions on new ways in which global histories can be researched using digital methods. Workshop Objectives and Target Audience: This workshop will begin with a brief overview of the structure and content of the VOC archives, highlighting the value of the GLOBALISE corpus for historical research. Through hands-on activities and discussions, participants will familiarise themselves with the latest advancements in digitization, data annotation and archival accessibility. They will gain practical experience using various components of the GLOBALISE infrastructure such as the transcription viewer and contextual datasets. This workshop also aims to stimulate discussions regarding the impact of digital advancements on the future of global history. The workshop will be suitable for scholars from all fields of study who are interested in making use of digital tools and accessing the VOC archives. Knowledge of the Dutch language would be beneficial, but not a prerequisite to participate in this workshop. Workshop Schedule Introduction (10 minutes) Plotting Places (30 Minutes) In this hands-on activity, participants will annotate and georeference place names on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century VOC maps of regions in Asia and South Africa. This activity will introduce participants to historical data creation and processing and demonstrate how this data is presented in the infrastructure. Break 10 minutes Show Me What Is Possible (30 minutes) Participants may submit their own research questions to the organizers ahead of the workshop. Working in groups alongside the organizers, they will devise strategies to address selected questions using GLOBALISE resources. Reflections and concluding remarks (10 minutes) If you want to participate in this workshop please register via https://forms.office.com/e/vgiePm8759.