From Citizens in Science to Citizen Science: Citizenship and Participatory Expertise in Contemporary Societies

Event details

Speaker: Dr Eugenia Rodriguez, University of Edinburgh

Something seems to be stirring in the world of public engagement with science. Something not entirely new, but whose novelty appears to stem from the unrelenting process of technological innovation. Citizen science (CS) has come with high stakes into the arena of public engagement with science, put forward by its advocates as a force for good, and now recognised and promoted institutionally as a mainstream approach to achieving better science and, with it, more participatory and democratic societies.

In this talk I will discuss the transformative potential of CS in light of one particular dimension that appears to be central in its definition: citizenship. For many proponents of CS and for some commentators, CS offers a further key step in the attainment of a participatory approach precisely by making citizens into scientists. However, I will show that this assumption remains unchecked – as do ideas about CS’s contribution to citizenship and, in turn, its role in science governance. If CS is to be a decisive step towards the constitution of scientific citizenship, how is this contribution materialised – what forms does it take and through which processes? Is CS giving rise to a distinctive form of citizenship?