Notes from ECSA 2024 – Katja Mayer’s keynote on participatory turns in the social sciences and lesson to citizen science

The final keynote of the ECSA 2024 conference was given by Katja Mayer on “Participatory Turns: The Bumpy Roads to Recognition of Participatory Approaches in Social Sciences and Lessons for Citizen Science.” The starting point is the need to consider the increase “participation” across disciplines and what participation means. She covers the participatory turns. In the world, there are many invisible applications of social science and humanities and how their powers work with their invisibility – they are all around (e.g. Meta). Citizen science seems like a good place to explore the invisibility of social science. CoAct, and Coeso are projects that explored citizen social science. Participatory turns are about the diversity of epistemic cultures and an opportunity to think about shifts in scientific fields more towards participatory methods. Active involvement of the people who are being researched not as subjects but as taking part in the production of knowledge. There are multiple examples of turns – power-WWII reflections, Action research, the influence of critical theory, feminist epistemology, and all the way to open science.

Participatory turns are not only about involving people but also about changing their lives and considering mutual benefits. The talk explores some examples of these turns and looks at an anecdotal study. Looking at lessons that can help us in citizen science. Doing a collective storytelling with understanding your own participatory turns. People do that on a miro board. A starting point of this reflection came at the end of COESO presentation, one panel member from a research funder was discussing what it will take to make citizen science grow – and about boundaries: what is and not considered as citizen science. One comment from the social science research applications that was rejected in a funding scheme. They looked at the review report – “this isn’t really citizen science this is more like your regular way of doing research with people”. This is a position of someone who is not aware of the realities in social science. The first reaction is that it’s difficult to secure money within social science for participatory research. It’s not that it is the main approach in social science. Only about 3% of articles are participatory methods. The quote of the reviewer shows the problem of boundary work, we point to epistemic diversity in the social and natural sciences.

In social science research, there are many ways of understanding the concept of participation. The main way is viewing participation as working with a human subject, and the alternative understanding of it as a research approach that engages with people continues to be contested and not always accepted. There are lots of problems and challenges in participatory research. There is a lot of concern about the citizen science term – from the term citizen to scope of involvement, some think that participation should mean more. This distinction and the delineating of boundaries is bringing issues in the social science. It’s methods and mindsets.

First, in sociology in Vienna in the mid-1990s where participatory research is seen as peripheral. Not central to the studies, not viewed as proper research by the leading academics. Working with different aspects of north and south – especially the pedagogy of the oppressed for including underprivileged groups. The qualitative and participatory methods were done outside academia. For main researchers, it was just considered as disruptive, not objectives. A shift towards public sociology only came later and created controversies. The participatory methods were questioned about validity and about their ethics. Participatory methods continue to be marginalised in methods that are being taught in sociology.

The second example is from Social psychology, which was a new field in the 1930 – there were humanistic methods that were developed and experienced objections. there were also developments in terms of following individuals and groups in a sociogram and sociometry, as well as psychodrama in a way that are considered participatory today. Social network analysis can be traced to the sociograms. Moreno didn’t receive scientific recognition for the work, and the problem of his approach was that computerisation moved to work sociometry while psychodrama was taken out as a method. The learning here is that even when there was a context and time of people doing research – the participatory origins of these methods are forgotten.

The reflexive approach of critical GIS. In the early 1990s, people started to ask assumption of power and inequality of geographical information. There was a critique of power relations of the technology. So what to do to make the technology can be made more socially robust. Also critique of presentation. Also wanted to democratise GIS. Has to fight for its existence in most places where it work. Some participatory GIS methods have become more mainstream but also struggle to get it into the curricula – techno-solutions and critical thinking and can tools be separated from social use.

There are similarities of the stories – always a need to fight claims about methodological rigour, the replication.

Need to remember that citizen science and participatory research are not the mainstream in research. The lessons: be reflexive and sensitive to pre=existing meaning and contexts of participants’ engagement. Acknowledge the co-production of knowledge and the situational dynamic constitution of participation and the public. Respectfully embrace interdisciplinary collaboration, support building for the margins, facilitate open and transparent methodology, understand community building and facilitate critical access and engagement – and be ready to advocate.

Social science should support the area of citizen science and take into account the abilities to teach community management, and participatory methods.

Personal experience – need to take into account the need for vocabulary in proposals and during projects. It requires ongoing negotiation and thinking about differences and complimentary – labels and requires clarification and renegotiation.

In terms of mutual ground will be the Giddens Double Hermeneutics. Social science education is asked to train yourself with your position as a researcher and as an actor in a field. Social science can highlight to other research area and projects and bring that as its contribution.

There is no confusion about what is citizen science already, but they are focusing too much on science, and don’t understand that it is about participatory research. For policymakers there is an understanding of what it is and for them there are things to argue about the boundaries and to make reviewers aware.

Katja will write this up as a proper paper and share it.

Funded by the European Union through the European Union’s Horizon Europe Framework Programmes for Research and Innovation under grant agreement No. 101058509 (ECS project). Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.