Citizen Science and Post-Normal Science in a Post-Truth Era: Democratizing Knowledge, Socializing Responsibility

• In Event: Systemic Socio-Environmental Change From the Local to the Planetary: Comparatively Analyzing Needs and Leveraging Possibilities

Abstract

There has been a rapid growth of what is referred to as Open Science or Science 2.0 that uses new technologies to increase and explore the democratization of and citizen participation in science (Peters & Heraud, 2015; Wals & Peters, 2018). In the last couple of decades various forms of openness in science has encouraged the development of what has come to be known as citizen science where ordinary citizens have participated in all aspects of scientific research from developing research questions, to recording observations, and analyzing data. The results have sometimes contributed to large-scale environmental projects and sometimes led to monitoring and control of the local environment. The European Commissions’ (2014) Green Paper on Citizen Science entitled Citizen Science for Europe: Towards a better society of empowered citizens and enhanced research puts the argument powerfully in terms of a paradigm shift towards a more open research process where ‘new participative and networked relationships promote the transformation of the scientific system, allowing collective intelligence and new collaborative knowledge creation, democratizing research and leading into emergence of new disciplines and connections.’ Citizen science is but one manifestation of a larger movement for openness that has determining effects for science and its reception. From its development in the 1980s and 1990s Green Political Theory (GPT) or ecopolitics founded on the work of Dryzek (1987), Eckersley (1992), Plumwood (1993) and Dobson (1980), participatory democracy has been viewed as a central pillar and key value, often associated with descriptions of decentralization, grassroots political decision-making and citizen participation, ‘strong democracy’ (Barber, 1997) and increasingly with conceptions of deliberative democracy. The value of participatory or grassroots democracy also seemed to gel with a new ecological awareness, non-violence and the concern for social justice. Green politics favored participatory and more recently deliberative democracy because it provided a model for open debate, direct citizen involvement and emphasized grassroots action over electoral politics. Embracing the concept of ecological democracy this paper argues that the contribution of citizen science to ‘transgressive educational paradigm’ (Wals & Peters, 2018) is a powerful educational model. Citizen environmental science is a useful model for co-produced public good science that recognizes that students as citizens need to have both ‘voice’ and agency in science matters, especially as it effects local environment. The effect is to increase the democratization of science and to reduce the cultural distance between ‘expert’ and citizen assessments furthering the aim of science communication of complex policy issues. Indigenous knowledge based on long term stewardship and cultural rights of environment, include multiple perspectives that involve spiritual values and ‘environmental being as a way of life’ is an important source of ‘local knowledge’ based on long-term experience which has a strong role to play in environmental assessment and legislation.

Author

• Tina Besley, Beijing Normal University