Abstract: Citizen science has the potential to contribute to infrastructures for disaster prevention and response. However, sensor networks and crowdsourcing platforms do not in themselves constitute infrastructure. They become disaster infrastructure only to the extent that they are integrated into the routine practices of disaster responders. This paper examines several community-led initiatives for characterizing disasters related to air quality, to understand how citizen science becomes, or fails to become, disaster infrastructure. The integration of citizen science into disaster infrastructure is fostered by creating communities of practice that include citizen scientists and disaster responders, and actively connecting new platforms and information to pre-existing infrastructure. By deliberately undertaking these activities, practitioners can help ensure that citizen science fulfills its potential to enhance disaster infrastructure. Published on 2022-05-19 13:28:01
Abstract: The food system is comprised of biophysical and social processes affecting everyone, and food system citizen and community science offer opportunities for research, especially on unstudied aspects of that system, including responses to crises and disasters. We describe how community science work on food crop seeds responded to the crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic, and how this response built on the social investigations that are part of that ongoing work. To address a number of the crises of the Anthropocene, groups and individuals have been creating infrastructure supporting community-driven seed research and provision. Some organizations investigate community development of locally adapted crops, and introduction of novel materials for testing in new environments, as well as alternative social organization and processes supportive of this research and aligned with their values. Looking at examples of two active, United States–based, community seed organizations, represented by two of the co-authors, we outline the values and theoretical grounding of this work, and how responding to the acute crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic has challenged these organizations to rapidly develop seed distribution work in ways consistent with their values and missions. Meeting these immediate needs has meant temporarily pivoting from the longer-term evolutionary processes of their community science biological investigations; still, existing social investigations remained relevant and useful in their pandemic work. The effectiveness of this crisis response provides an example of explicitly values-driven research, and indicates the importance of recognizing the implicit social investigations of community science that sometimes experiment with alternative approaches to organizing society to achieve both immediate results, and longer term, prosocial change. Published on 2022-05-19 13:17:19
Abstract: From 2010 to 2019, Argentinian medical students and faculty at the Universidad Nacional de Rosario worked with allies from grassroots movements to routinize new epidemiological data collection practices designed to call medical students’ attention to the public health consequences of industrial agriculture’s indiscriminate use of pesticides. This paper charts the rise and fall of their collective efforts to institutionalize participatory knowledge and pedagogy that directly challenged the political legitimacy of industrial agriculture. We anchor our study in a trio of concepts—sociotechnical regime, niche, and network—using these tools to describe the dynamic interplay among dominant and subordinate knowledge systems. Our analysis reveals that radical participatory projects cannot be understood without reference to the historical and institutional contexts that structure opportunities and constraints within which participatory knowledge research is developed, implemented, and sustained. Published on 2022-05-19 13:03:28
Abstract: Public participation is the democratic gateway to more just, inclusive, and resilient communities. However, infrastructure and hazard mitigation planning tends toward top-down, expert-driven processes that fail to meaningfully include communities most at risk of disasters. In this article, we critically examine the potential of citizen science in infrastructure and hazard mitigation planning with a focus on stormwater infrastructure and extreme wet-weather events, as floods are the most common disaster in the US. We review literature on various citizen science approaches, from crowdsourcing to community science, and offer a framework that situates them within Sherry Arnstein’s foundational piece on public participation, a “Ladder of Citizen Participation.” We discuss the opportunities different participatory methods offer for meaningful public involvement, knowledge generation, and ultimately community control and ownership of stormwater and flood infrastructure. We provide case study examples across the US of how public works departments, emergency management, and related organizations have engaged communities around hazard risks and flooding challenges, and offer recommendations for how these programs can be improved. We conclude that in order to produce data needed to mitigate flood disasters and increase trust and public interest in infrastructure needs, civic participation should be grounded in community science, utilizing a multimedia and technological platform. The methods applied and data generated can be leveraged toward public safety, and provide voice, agency, and power particularly to disenfranchised communities most at risk from current hazards and looming climate change impacts. Published on 2022-05-19 12:48:27
Abstract: Since the Fukushima nuclear accident, dozens of citizen radiation measuring organizations (CRMOs) continue to observe the nuclear fallout in Japan. Their activities intersect on a regular basis with those of the Japanese government. Recognizing the different policy levels involved in radiation measuring, this paper studies the relations between local governments and CRMOs. We examine how civic and governmental infrastructures initiated in the wake of the Fukushima accident (dis)engage with each other. We link these infrastructures with pre- and post-Fukushima socio-technical imaginaries. By doing so, we explore whether and how CRMOs challenge and reconfigure political culture in post-Fukushima Japan. We conclude that CRMOs and local governments have established themselves as separate infrastructures, living and operating in the same environment, yet apart in the majority of cases. We identify obstacles and opportunities for citizen engagement in the emergency and recovery process after a nuclear accident, and contextualize CRMOs within citizen mobilization after Fukushima. Document analysis, fieldwork, and interviews with CRMOs, local governments, and the Fukushima prefectural government make up the basis of our study. Published on 2022-05-19 12:40:00
Abstract: New York City was one of the hardest-hit areas in the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. At the time, knowledge about SARS-CoV-2 and strategies to prevent and respond to outbreaks were incipient. Social distancing created additional challenges. As such, people turned to digital technologies to find creative ways, not only to keep in touch with their loved ones, but also to find help and to assist strangers in need. In this essay, we describe how individuals and organizations in New York City used digital technologies to monitor and share information on COVID-19, to provide support for vulnerable people, and to get medical devices to those in need. Using the concepts of citizen science, mutual aid, and digital sociotechnical systems, we make three arguments. First, digital sociotechnical systems have a unique capacity to enroll and connect people—including strangers—over long distances, therefore enabling participation in mutual aid initiatives despite strict social-distancing limitations. Second, pre-existing mutual aid initiatives supported by digital sociotechnical systems demonstrated high adaptability and were quickly repurposed for COVID-19 mutual aid. Lastly, mutual aid initiatives, confronted with certain limitations of digital sociotechnical systems, engendered innovations and calls for transformations toward more inclusive systems. Time will tell whether these emerging transformations outlast the disaster itself and enhance long-term community resilience. Published on 2022-05-19 12:29:26
Abstract: There are many challenges involved in online participatory humanitarian response. We evaluate the Planetary Response Network (PRN), a collaboration between researchers, humanitarian organizations, and the online citizen science platform Zooniverse. The PRN uses satellite and aerial image analysis to provide stakeholders with high-level situational awareness during and after humanitarian crises. During past deployments, thousands of online volunteers have compared pre- and post-event satellite images to identify damage to infrastructure and buildings, access blockages, and signs of people in distress. In addition to collectively producing aggregated “heat maps” of features that are shared with responders and decision makers, individual volunteers may also flag novel features directly using integrated community discussion software. The online infrastructure facilitates worldwide participation even for geographically focused disasters; this widespread public participation means that high-value information can be delivered rapidly and uniformly even for large-scale crises. We discuss lessons learned from deployments, place the PRN’s distributed online approach in the context of more localized efforts, and identify future needs for the PRN and similar online crisis-mapping projects. The successes of the PRN demonstrate that effective online crisis mapping is possible on a generalized citizen science platform such as the Zooniverse. Published on 2022-05-19 12:17:52
Abstract: Disaster research faces significant infrastructure challenges: regional and federal coordination, access to resources, and community collaboration. Disasters can lead to chemical exposures that potentially impact human health and cause concern in affected communities. Community-engaged research, which incorporates local knowledge and voices, is well suited for work with communities that experience impacts of environmental exposures following disasters. We present three examples of community-engaged disaster research (CEnDR) following oil spills, hurricanes, and wildfires, and their impact on long-term social, physical, and technical community infrastructure. We highlight the following CEnDR structures: researcher/community networks; convenient research tools; adaptable data collection modalities for equitable access; and return of data. Published on 2022-05-19 11:30:30
Abstract: Citizen and community science can improve conservation efforts, help people connect with nature, and strengthen online social infrastructure during periods of disturbance. Volunteers for citizen and community science (CCS) projects engage in a variety of activities ranging from in-person group tasks to isolated online tasks. The diversity of available CCS engagement activity types was altered by the COVID-19 pandemic. Our goals were to document the impact of COVID-19 (1) on participation in different types of CCS projects and (2) across a varying landscape of pandemic-associated restrictions. We examined digital trace data from SciStarter.org to examine participation in CCS projects before and during COVID-19. We created a summative index of different COVID-19 restrictions to quantify how daily life in each US state was impacted. We found that during the pandemic, projects in which data collection occurred away from home had fewer joins than other types of projects. This contrasts with pre-pandemic, for which there was no difference in joins among the different project types. Although there was a decrease in joins among away from home projects that occurred during the pandemic, the difference between pre-pandemic and during the pandemic was not statistically significant. There was no difference in joins among the different project types between individuals in states with few COVID-19 restrictions compared with individuals in states with many COVID-19 restrictions. Interviews conducted with project leaders reinforced these findings and provided examples of how projects could be modified to continue generating data and connecting communities. Published on 2022-05-19 10:29:33
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