How Citizen Scientists See their Own Role and Expertise: An Explorative Study of the Perspectives of Beekeepers in a Citizen Science Project

The mission and definition of citizen science are vividly debated. One of the crucial aspects contested is who has the agency to define it; another is how precise a definition can and should be and how much these definitions are reflective of the heterogeneity of practices and perspectives subsumed under the label citizen science. In this paper we draw attention to how citizens themselves actively construct their own roles within a project in relation to both their histories and the project’s scientists. Drawing on a set of in-depth interviews with participating Austrian beekeepers in the INSIGNIA project, we show how even within a small, relatively homogenous sample of participants, there is considerable diversity in how the citizen scientists see their roles. We explore how citizen scientists articulate a different set of relations towards science, their own practice as beekeepers, and their desired role in the project. In conclusion, we discuss the implications of our findings for academic reflection on citizen science as well as practical implementation for citizen science projects.