ABSTRACT
The sudden and dramatic advent of the COVID-19 pandemic led to urgent demands for timely, relevant, yet rigorous research. This paper discusses the origin, design, and execution of the SolPan research commons, a large-scale, international, comparative, qualitative research project that sought to respond to the need for knowledge among researchers and policymakers in times of crisis. The form of organization as a research commons is characterized by an underlying solidaristic attitude of its members and its intrinsic organizational features in which research data and knowledge in the study is shared and jointly owned. As such, the project is peer-governed, rooted in (idealist) social values of academia, and aims at providing tools and benefits for its members. In this paper, we discuss challenges and solutions for qualitative studies that seek to operate as research commons.
ABSTRACT
This article explores and discusses understandings of citizen science with members of Japanese citizen radiation measuring organizations who began measuring radioactive contamination in food, soil, air, and human bodies after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident. Building on in-depth interviews with organization members and extensive multi-site fieldwork (2018, 2020), the article takes shimin kagaku (citizen science in Japanese) to examine articulations of citizenship and science, while discussing citizen radiation measuring organization activities. Adopting Tsing's notion of nonscalability, it draws attention to the manifold articulations of citizenship and science, unearthing frictions embedded in Japanese science-society relations. In this way, this article outlines the diversity of notions of citizenship and science, and of citizen participatory practices in science. By bringing nonscalability to bear on an analysis of different articulations of shimin kagaku, this article encourages scientists and public authorities to engage with citizen participatory practices reflexively and responsibly by considering local articulations and knowledges.
Subject(s)
Citizen Science , Fukushima Nuclear Accident , Humans , JapanABSTRACT
In order to reduce lung cancer due to radon exposure situations, not only authorities and organisations but also citizens may meaningfully contribute to radon mitigation actions. Citizen science (CS) initiatives are recognised for their scientific, societal and policy value related to environmental issues. The purpose of this paper is to identify which CS initiatives in the field of radon exist and evaluate to what extent these CS initiatives contribute to radon research and/or radiation protection from radon. We conducted a systematic review of internet pages and scientific literature (September-December 2020) as well as expert consultation to help us identify and assess CS initiatives on radon (September 2020-February 2021). The ten principles of the European Citizen Science Association have been used as a starting point to develop indicators for the analysis of CS contributions to radon research. The results show that there are at least eight CS initiatives in the world contributing to radon related research which comply, to some degree, with each of the ten principles. In all these initiatives citizens contributed or are contributing meaningfully to radon testing and measurements. However, most of them apply the simplest form of participation (crowdsourcing) and only one focuses on radon mitigation. Moreover, unlike CS initiatives in other environmental areas, those focusing on radon are always led by the authorities and/or universities, in a top-down manner. Yet, results confirm that both the experts in radon-related fields and the citizen scientists from radon prone areas benefit from taking part in radon CS initiatives. Experiences and lessons learned in radon related to CS initiatives are identified and discussed in order to inspire future CS initiatives potentially contributing to reducing exposure to radon as well as to the implementation of national radon action plans.
