Abstract :
[en] We are presently witnessing a global explosion of citizen science initiatives covering a wide range of topics, from counting hummingbirds to actively researching new medical treatments, to the use of smartphones to measuring radioactivity in the environment. European policymakers and societal stakeholders hail citizen science as a means of (re)building trust in science, which may in turn lead to “more democratic research based on evidence and informed decision-making” and more responsible innovation (Sanz et al. 2014). Others see it as a means of enabling citizens to become researchers, advocates, or watchdogs of science, or to become their own sensors and create their own expertise and communities, distinct from established organizations and practices.
In this workshop, we explore these and related issues through the notion of ‘(un)taming,’ which refers to the mutual adjustment of technology and the social, and links to ‘domestication’ and domestication theory in science and technology studies (Latour, 1987; Callon, 1986; Williams et al. 2004). It allows us to highlight how citizen science is incorporated into science and other subsystems of society through a wide array of interrelated and unconnected mechanisms, programs and procedures, such as research and development processes, the fabrication of new technologies and systems (e.g. DIY technologies), science policy making, educational activities, science journalism, and contemporary art forms, among others. As these processes elicit both support and controversy, they evoke several significant questions as to how citizen science is changing the confines of science and citizenship in contemporary society: Who and what is citizen science (not) for? How is citizen science tamed, and why? Which citizen science forms are amenable to taming, which forms are not? How is citizen science made public or politicized? How is it professionalized? How is it promoted, and to what effects? How do citizen scientists engage with the above questions? How will citizen science fare in the years ahead?
