A “Tyranny of Structurelessness”? The Benefits and Burdens of Power Sharing and Governance Models in Citizen Science

Abstract

In 1970, Jo Freeman wrote the essay “The Tyranny of Structurelessness,” drawing attention to the ways power dynamics pervaded so-called “structureless” groups during the women’s liberation movement. Similarly, biomedical citizen science groups are looking to new ways to organize themselves, and are grappling with questions of structure, governance, and leadership (or lack thereof), particularly given the problematic hierarchies found in corporate and academic biomedicine. Based on three years of observations, in-depth interviews, and document analysis of a community biology initiative to make insulin, this paper follows the group’s collective decision-making practices and the shift from horizontal, self-directed governance approaches to the implementation of a formal organizational structure. This paper identifies three mutually constitutive themes that acted as sites of change and shaped how internal governance was enacted, including membership and mechanisms of exclusion and inclusion; leadership and decision-making structures; and the mission as a social process in which objectives and implicit values were regularly negotiated. Findings underscore both the benefits of an open structure, such as facilitating participation in science, as well as challenges, including questions of when, how, and by whom decisions are made. I argue that thoughtful governance to actualize values such as power sharing can be difficult to construct and put into practice; yet, failing to do so risks reproducing problematic structures and norms many biomedical citizen scientists seek to avoid.