Co-creation in citizen social science: the research forum as a methodological foundation for communication and participation

Stefan Thomas,David Scheller,Susan Schröder

doi:10.1057/s41599-021-00902-x

Stefan Thomas, David Scheller + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-021-00902-x

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Abstract

This paper addresses the emerging methodological debate about citizen social science from the perspective of participatory research methods. The paper introduces the research forum as a horizontal and safe communicative space moderated by academic researchers that enables co-researcher participation across all phases of co-creational research projects. It is argued that in co-creational citizen social science, such a communicative space requires conceptualisation in order for it to foster citizens’ engagement in the knowledge production that deals with their specific social lifeworlds. In the research forum, the potential that the social sciences bring to citizen science—methodological reflection and the theoretical interpretation and contextualisation of data—can flourish in a collaborative process. Based on the expertise in co-created research in multigenerational co-housing projects, the paper reflects on practical experiences with the research forum in terms of four central dimensions: (1) opening up spaces for social encounters; (2) establishing communicative practice; (3) initiating a process of social self-understanding; (4) engaging in (counter-)public discourses. Finally, the paper closes with a summary of potential and challenges that the research forum provides as a methodological foundation for co-creation in citizen social science projects.

Highlights

In recent years, the number of citizen science projects, and the public recognition of citizen science, has increased significantly (Sauermann et al, 2020)
The emerging field of citizen social science brings together social science researchers who conduct citizen science projects (Dadich, 2014; Purdam, 2014; Kythreotis et al, 2019; Heiss and Matthes, 2017) and researchers with a background in citizen science who focus on social issues and apply and integrate social science methodologies and theories in research (Darch, 2017; Eitzel et al, 2017; Hecker et al, 2018; Mayer et al, 2021; Vohland et al, 2021)
We argue that an explicit discussion of the foundational methodology that guides communication between project partners is of key importance in co-creational citizen social science projects

Summary

Introduction

The number of citizen science projects, and the public recognition of citizen science, has increased significantly (Sauermann et al, 2020). We present four dimensions of the research forum and our conceptual reflections on their practical application in the cohousing projects to exemplify our methodological framework: opening up spaces, communicative practices, social selfunderstanding and (counter-)public discourses.

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