Participatory practices and transforming environmental research in the Anthropocene

Abstract

The Anthropocene, the so-called Age of Humans, challenges the realm of environmental research to reflect on and ultimately change its premises and practices. As ecological change occurs asynchronously and unevenly, it has highly divergent consequences for different actors and communities depending on their social, cultural, geographical or economic backgrounds. To adequately deal with this disparity it is needed firstly to enter into new fields of research and secondly to alter scientific practices. Focusing on natural history museums as sites of knowledge production and environmental research, we look at past and ongoing inequalities in environmental collection practices, and propose a path of reform via participatory practices. In our paper, we identify three aspects of participatory research and collecting practices to stimulate an evolution of environmental research practices, and highlight current research projects that face these challenges in the following sections: 1. Rethinking and transforming language and naming practices, 2. Multiperspectival practices, 3. Entanglement and digital practices.