Abstract
Citizen science evolved through multiple disciplinary manifestations into a new field of study and a participatory method of enquiry. While most citizen science projects take place within problem-focused natural sciences, social sciences and humanities help understanding the human dimension and open a broad methodological spectrum for enriching scientific research with new approaches and for boosting public participation. In this paper, we use a meta-synthesis approach to explore how citizen science is practised in the so far less addressed social sciences and humanities by focusing on the role of the citizens, the goals and approaches of the projects, the tasks in which citizens are engaged and their gains across projects of diverse disciplinary background. Our findings indicate that social sciences are gaining more acknowledgment within interdisciplinary citizen science projects by addressing ‘wicked’ problems of human behaviour and agency, while humanities are in quest of a better-defined locus in citizen science. We conclude that social sciences and humanities still face considerable barriers to infiltrate citizen science; the payoffs are substantial and already rewarding for several subfields in social sciences and humanities.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 89 |
| Peer-reviewed scientific journal | Palgrave Communications |
| Volume | 6 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| Number of pages | 11 |
| ISSN | 2055-1045 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 07.05.2020 |
| MoE publication type | A1 Journal article - refereed |
| Event | Project "A Framework in Science and Technology to promote creativity, scientific literacy, and innovation throughout Europe" - Duration: 21.09.2016 → 20.09.2020 |
Keywords
- 512 Business and Management
- business and management
- environmental studies
- geography
- science, technology and society
- sociology
- 520 Other social sciences
- Citizen science
- 616 Other humanities
- Heritage
