Citizen Science and Democratic Citizenship

Citizen science (CS) is now widely recognized as a scienti c 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 conicting, 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?