Exploring the Potential of Citizen Social Science for Environmental and Sustainability Research: Experiences of and with Community-Based Researchers

Citizen Science: Theory and Practice

Elizabeth Dinnie¹  Anke Fischer²  Alan Carter³  Gregor Welsh⁴  Antonia Eastwood⁵  Rowan Ellis⁵ 

[1] Work conducted while at Social, Economic and Geographical Sciences, James Hutton Institute;Division of Environmental Communication, Department of Urban and Rural Development, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, SE;Ecological Sciences, James Hutton Institute;Independent citizen researcher;Social, Economic and Geographical Sciences, James Hutton Institute;

关键词: participatory action research;    community-based research;    greenspace;    community food growing;    scotland;   

DOI  :  10.5334/cstp.389

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Citizen social science has been developing in meaning and prevalence over the past few years, building on experiences with both citizen (natural) science and established social science methods such as participatory action research. However, most of the debate is still at the conceptual level, with strong calls for more empirical insight. Here, we critically examine the promises and challenges of citizen social science, based on two small-scale, co-created and locally embedded projects on people’s relationships with urban greenspaces and community food growing, conducted as a collaboration between professional and citizen social scientists. Our findings illustrate the complexity of such research in practice and identify five dilemmas that arise from tensions between the aspirations and hopes associated with co-created citizen social science, and the pragmatic and procedural realities of citizen research in practice. We argue that citizen social science projects will have to actively engage with these in order to be successful.

【 授权许可】

Unknown