Citizen Science, Stakeholder Science: Citizen science as strategy for minority stakeholder engagement in natural resource management

• In Event: 2251 - Section on Environmental Sociology Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 19. Public Participation in Science

Abstract

In this paper, we combine the paradigms of collaborative resource management and citizen science to examine the engagement of Vietnamese American commercial fisheries stakeholders in the US Gulf Coast with state and federal agencies and the role that citizen science may play in improving this engagement. Firstly, we examine key barriers to engagement of Vietnamese American stakeholders in Gulf Coast commercial fisheries. Secondly, we examine both successful and unsuccessful citizen science projects that engaged Vietnamese American fishers in data collection. Bringing together these two sets of findings, we argue that Stakeholder Science – respectful collaborative science involving both stakeholders and agencies – may serve to overcome some of the challenges to engaging diverse fishing stakeholders and barriers resulting from stratification.

Author

• Rebecca L. Schewe, Syracuse University