P10- Citizen Science and Democratic Citizenship
PANEL Organizers
• Van Oudheusden Michiel (michiel.vanoudheusden@ulg.ac.be), Université de Liège; SPIRAL (Belgium)
• Meyer Morgan (morgan.meyer@agroparistech.fr), Agro ParisTech and LISIS
SUMMARY
Citizen science (CS) is now widely recognized as a scientific research practice that engages “nonscientists” such as journalists, artists, hackers, and entrepreneurs. Examples of CS include amateur astronomy, biohacking, video gaming, and ornithology, among many others. As many of these practices serve public purposes (e.g. educational goals) and emanate within participatory cultures (e.g. the open science movement), CS can be inscribed in a politics of openness, transparency, and inclusion. These politics are potentially reinforced by the policy uptake of CS (e.g. EU White Paper on CS). Yet, despite its growing public significance and potential to render science more inclusive, CS embeds divergent, often conflicting, assumptions about the means and ends of science and the role of the citizen/scientist in contemporary democracy. For instance, in its “purest” form, CS emerges as a reaction against industry and institutional science, in so far as these institutes are seen to inhibit open knowledge sharing. On the other hand, CS sometimes links to commercial endeavors. CS should thus be approached as a multilayered practice that has the power to reshape existing policies, categories, and identities. Taking these reflections into consideration, this panel asks how CS (re)constructs the contemporary citizen, scientist, and citizen scientist. How are citizens transformed into active “co-creators” of science? Which political rights do citizen scientists claim, as individuals or as groups? Which tools do citizen scientists mobilize to build communities around scientific endeavor? How local or global are the politics of CS? How do policymakers act as facilitators, patrons, or challengers of a more collective, open science? These questions demand critical attention, as CS is performative of democratic citizenship. The panel's questions resonate with the following conference themes: How are publics constructed by policies? To what extent are groups and identities shaped in the policymaking process? How do publics express themselves?
KEY WORDS
Citizen Science, Citizenship, Democracy, Identity, Politics, Science
ROOM
Faculty, E2.11
SESSION 1 : 8/07/2015 : 13:15-14:45
Chair: Michiel van Oudheusden (michiel.vanoudheusden@ulg.ac.be), Université de Liège; SPIRAL (Belgium)
Discussant: Morgan Meyer (morgan.meyer@agroparistech.fr), Agro ParisTech and LISIS
• Negotiating repository safety: on the willingness (or not) of regulators to incorporate citizens' views in their science based safety assessment
Marlies Verhaegen and Anne Bergmans (anne.bergmans@uantwerpen.be), University of Antwerp (Belgium)
• Open Source Hardware Prototypes for Translational Research and Citizen Science Outreach
Kera Denisa (denisa@nus.edu.sg), National University of Singapore (NUS)
• Dimensions of power and the democratization of science
åm Heidrun (heidrun.aam@ntnu.no), Norwegian University of Science and Technology (Norway)
SESSION 2 : 8/07/2015 : 15:00-16:30
Chair: Morgan Meyer (morgan.meyer@agroparistech.fr), Agro ParisTech and LISIS
Discussant: Michiel van Oudheusden (michiel.vanoudheusden@ulg.ac.be), Université de Liège; SPIRAL (Belgium)
• Classifying nature, defining ecological citizenship
Minna Santaoja (minna.santaoja@staff.uta.fi), University of Tampere (Finland)
• Tinkering with life: the politics of do-it-yourself biology
Morgan Meyer (morgan.meyer@mines-paristech.fr), Ecole des Mines de Paris (France)
• Conceptualising and enacting the citizen in citizen science
Eugenia Rodrigues (eugenia.rodrigues@ed.ac.uk), University of Edinburgh (United Kingdom)
