Paper short abstract

Drawing on fieldwork in an urban forest in Nairobi, this paper reflects on citizen science and eco-ethnography, suggesting that participation may unfold through practices of collective presence, slowing down, and non-action, under conditions of ecological urgency.

Paper long abstract

This paper reflects on the promises and limits of citizen science and eco-ethnography through fieldwork with a youth-led tree nursery group engaged in forest conservation on the outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya. Here, participation has taken the form of light, informal practices, including the sharing of photographs, videos, and observations through a WhatsApp group, alongside moments of collective presence in the forest. While these practices align with participatory and citizen science approaches, they sit uneasily with dominant expectations of data production, measurable outcomes, and action-oriented engagement—particularly under conditions of ecological urgency.

Drawing on ethnography in Oloolua Forest, and a locally developed workshop that deliberately slows down action and suspends solution-making, the paper examines how urgency is lived and negotiated by environmentally engaged youth. Rather than gathering predefined contributions, the workshop foregrounds reflections on forest care as attentiveness and attachment, allowing urgency to appear not only as motivation but also as pressure, fatigue, and moral demand.

This paper suggests that while citizen science and eco-ethnography promise more inclusive forms of knowledge-making, they may inadvertently reproduce extractive logics when participation becomes synonymous with contribution. By attending to moments of non-action, delayed reflection, and participant-paced documentation, this case proposes an alternative orientation to participation — one grounded in presence rather than productivity. In doing so, it contributes to debates on citizen science and eco-ethnography by showing how participation may unfold through practices of collective presence, slowing down, and non-action under conditions of ecological urgency.

Paper short abstract

Multimodal, co‑creative work in Tasik Chini Biosphere, bridges Indigenous and academic worlds to rethink Disaster Risk Resilience (DRR) amid climate change.

Paper long abstract

The authors reflect on a transdisciplinary research collaboration in the Tasik Chini Biosphere Reserve, Malaysia, where an international team and Indigenous co‑researchers experimented with multimodal anthropology to explore Disaster Risk Resilience (DRR). Through hackathon‑style workshops and the co‑creation of an interactive documentary (i‑doc), the project sought to unsettle conventional research habits and generate shared spaces of knowledge‑making that honour Indigenous epistemologies. Multimodal approaches—combining sound, image, narrative, mapping, and embodied practice—became tools for negotiating difference, revealing assumptions, and enabling forms of dialogue that exceed textual or policy‑driven modes of engagement.

In a context marked by legal constraints, linguistic plurality, and uneven power relations, the team used multimodality not only as a method but as a relational practice. Drawing on informal interviews and recorded conversations, the paper examines moments of awe, confusion, and productive friction through ethics of care. These moments illuminate how vulnerability, reflexivity, and sensory engagement can help researchers navigate polarised worlds where institutional timelines, disciplinary expectations, and community rhythms often collide.

The paper argues that resilience emerges not simply from integrating Indigenous insights into existing DRR frameworks, but from reconfiguring research relationships, accountability, and storytelling practices. By foregrounding co‑creation and multimodal experimentation, the project in the Tasik Chini biosphere offers a positive, situated example of how transdisciplinary teams can work across epistemic divides. The i‑doc is presented both as a research output and as a methodological proposition for building more ethical, imaginative, and collaborative futures.

Paper short abstract

This presentation shares the collapsing of one citizen science project into a re-directed attention to another, on Mafia Island, Tanzania. From (failed attempts at) eco-acoustic recordings, to community-led whale shark documentation in an effort to promote eco-tourism and marine conservation.

Paper long abstract

Long abstract: As part of my PhD research, I intended to records sounds of the Anthropocene (or lack thereof) with citizen scientists, over nine interspersed months of fieldwork on Mafia Island, Tanzania. When I arrived to Mafia Island, citizen science was already very much present, albeit in a different configuration. Residents of Mafia were part of ongoing citizen science projects, documenting whale sharks in their waters. I abandoned my own citizen science plans, and starting observing the efforts, particularly among those involved in tourism, to incorporate citizen science into the bourgeoning of Mafia as an eco-destination centred around conservation. This presentation argues that residents of Mafia are challenging the conventional boundaries of citizen science, through engaging in their own, self-organised projects that prioritised their own needs above external researchers’. Realising that the people of Mafia Island have a better grasp on citizen science than I did, the ethnographic parametres of citizen science being brought to the fieldsite were reconstituted. My failures as a citizen science facilitator lent to a pivoting of focus and perception of citizen science initiatives that re-oriented the researcher/ and the researched. The citizen science projects in Mafia led me to WWF offices, tour guide Community-Based Organisations, and unexpectedly, to women-only meditation groups from the United Kingdom, on retreat in Mafia. These circumstances allowed for a listening, not to the sounds of the Anthropocene, but to the attempts of those in Mafia Island to place themselves, ecologically and socially, on the map of conservation-based initiatives.

Paper short abstract

Based on ethnographic research in Germany’s Middle German Coal District, this paper examines industrial heritage-making as a form of repair, drawing the inspiration from the eco-ethnography and citizen-science approach. The research is part of C-Urge: Anthropology of Global Climate Urgency project.

Paper long abstract

This paper presents a multi-sited (eco)-ethnographic research conducted between 2023 and 2025 in the Middle German Coal District in Saxony Anhalt, Germany. The research explors industrial heritage-making as a form of (urgent) repair under conditions of climate urgency and structural transformations of the region, that are in the line with german coal-exiting policies. Focusing on three specific industrial heritage institutions and regional heritage networks, the paper examines how are practises of preservation, reinvention and coordination of the industrial heritage employed as methods of engaging and navigating the trasnformations of the formely heavily industrial region.

The paper approaches industrial heritage-making as an mode of knowledge production in which non-academic actors (local industrial heritage workers and event organizers) actively participate in sensing, narrating and maintaining the balance between the industrial past, present and future. Eco-ethnographic approach draws attention to notions of care and repair and reveals how climate urgency is negotiated not only through policy or innovation, but also through situated and often slow practices of repair that bring together memory, material remains and new reinventions of industrial heritage of Middle German Coal District.

Paper short abstract

What kind of time does civic science research really need, from whom? This contribution draws on collaborative research models on river disputes in Central Asia, and on marine energy innovations in Canada, to explore some possible rules of thumb.

Paper long abstract

What kind of time does co-lead research really need, from whom? How can we calibrate the enormous hopes often attached to ideals of ‚civic science’ as ‘science that empowers people to question the state of things rather than simply serving the state’ (Fortun and Fortun 2005: 50), with the time and attention they need, to be at least partially realized? This contribution draws on the experience with co-research models on a) river disputes in Central Asia and b) marine energy innovations in Canada. Generating a river exhibition with a Central Asian team of ethnographers, artists and river residents taught lessons about political constraints, as well as the length and intensity of live contact and communication needed for its success. Hosting water policy-makers in a delta village to turn around ordinary hierarchies by learning from farming households produced other lessons, e.g on our failure to take account of the biographic timing for visiting participants. More recently, the example of co-designing an archive of community experiences with cutting-edge tidal devices on a Canadian coast is teaching me about the different rhythms of what ‚engagement’ means, in Indigenous and in settler contexts. I use experiences from these very different socio-political contexts, to explore some possible rules of thumbs around temporal dimensions of labour, and expectations in shaping non-extractive environmental research. Reflecting on this question could help avoid over-promising, or under-estimating time. In an arena of great hope and uncertainty, such a reflection may help enact collective research forms, with care for equity.

Paper short abstract

I respond to the limitations of eco-ethnography by complementing it with field philosophy, drawing on my fieldwork experience in Pödelwitz, where i collaborate with scientific citizens on concepts in, from, and for the field.

Paper long abstract

Eco-ethnography is a powerful addition to citizen science by enriching quantitative data collection with ethnographic nuance. Yet, it remains confined to citizen science narrowly defined. Furthermore, even though it provides critical reflection on the collaboration between lay-people and experts, eco-ethnography risks reproducing a one-way relation between science and citizens, and by extension nature and society. I respond to these limitations by complementing eco-ethnography with field philosophy, drawing on my fieldwork experience in Pödelwitz.

Field-philosophy is an emerging trandisciplinary methodology, with strong roots in anthropology, which treats conceptual analysis as a collaborative fieldwork activity (Rabinow 2014; Buchanan 2019; Diamanti 2025). Pödelwitz is a village in the central German mining district, which was saved from devastation by local residents and climate activist. From this successful resistance emerged a citizen initiative which aims to transform the village in line with climate justice. I here reflect on my collaboration with the initiative to study what climate justice means for Pödelwitz during and after the German exit from coal.

Field philosophy productively complicates the distinction between of citizens and scientist. Many of my collaborators have an academic background but collaborate with me as activists; they are scientific citizens. Moreover, it expands eco-ethnography's focus on natural science research (like climate) to humanities topics (such as justice), by studying what I call concepts in, from, for the field. Yet, there are lingering concerns, how well these epistemically situated and politically positioned concepts can travel, especially in the polarized times of climate urgency, with which I conclude.

Paper short abstract

This paper reflects on a workshop series aimed at inviting non-scientists into the collection of scientific data and scientists into the recognition, collection, and use of alternative modes of knowledge and evidence production around water wellbeing and ways of being with water.

Paper long abstract

Across the UK, drought, pollution, and over-abstraction combined with growing demand constitute a water crisis. Water companies, regulators and researchers increasingly argue that these challenges cannot be solved through bureaucratic or technological means, nor improved science communication alone. Transformational behaviour and attitudinal shift are needed to support sustainability across scales and implement meaningful change. In the spring of 2025, the University of Cambridge’s Interfaith Programme and Engineering Department ran a series of workshops bringing together scientists, water industry actors, and faith-led water activists for discussion about and creative engagements with local waters. In doing so, the series sought to introduce and facilitate a novel approach to citizen science that did not simply invite non-scientists into the collection of scientific data or other aspects of the scientific process, but also invited scientists into the collection of alternative modes of knowledge about, evidentiary regimes of, and relations with water. Workshop activities, including water walks, speculative fiction theatre, and scriptural reasoning, aimed at troubling the normative epistemo-political context of water sustainability and its notions about water wellbeing and ways of being with water. In the timespace of the workshop, successes were clear: novel ideas emerged, perspectives shifted, and a sense of urgency pervaded. The challenge lay in continuing such a multidirectional knowledge production in the months that followed. This paper reflects on the successes and failures of a project hoping to re-envision citizen science as a route for engaging multiple voices and de-hierarchizing ‘arts of noticing’ (Tsing 2015) beyond its own time constraints.

Paper short abstract

In the Augusta–Siracusa petrochemical corridor, an “Eco-Justice” campaign and a workshop I convened show eco-ethnographic citizen science as justice-work, and how “repair” is discussed in the context of detoxification, and how justice claims translate into demands for remediation/accountability.

Paper long abstract

Eco-Giustizia Subito! (“Eco-Justice now!”) is a travelling eco-justice campaign that visits Italy’s Sites of National Interest (SIN) to demand enforceable remediation (bonifiche), application of the polluter-pays principle, and democratic oversight of industrial transition. This paper offers an eco-ethnography of the campaign’s stop in the Siracusa–Augusta petrochemical corridor, focusing on two public formats: a demonstration organized by Legambiente and a workshop/ public discussion that I convened with local participants and invited experts.

Drawing on Zenker & Wolf’s “new anthropology of justice in the Anthropocene,” I treat justice as an analytic that makes visible how the campaign assemble: (1) subjects of justice, (2) objects of justice, (3) responsible agents, and (4) concerned agents. I argue that these categories are not given in advance but are actively produced through specific public and participatory formats. I show how the Legambiente (a national environmental organisation) demonstration produces public address and moral pressure, while the workshop and discussion operate as eco-ethnographic citizen science: they translate embodied knowledge of toxicity into shared problem definitions, negotiate evidence, and clarify what “responsibility” could mean in practice.

The paper also highlights pitfalls: credibility struggles around data and expertise; uneven labor and exposure; and the risk of responsibilizing affected communities to produce their own justice. Following Zenker and Wolf, I argue that the political force of these hybrid formats lies in reclaiming the human as a necessary category of responsibility and action, not as an abstract or universal subject, but through the situated naming of duty-bearers and claims for public restitution.

Paper short abstract

Eco-ethnography in Pattiyawala, a rural village in Sri Lanka, revealed the ethical ambiguities innate in human–non-human relationships and their implications for participatory research. Exploring how moral controversies intersect with collaborative knowledge production to enhance citizen science.

Paper long abstract

Eco-ethnography in Pattiyawala, a rural agricultural village in Sri Lanka, revealed the ethical ambiguities inherent in human–non-human relationships and their implications for participatory research. Two field episodes: a boy discarding a fish kept briefly as an ornament, and the killing of a mother dog and her puppy by a local hunter, highlight how care, harm, and moral responsibility are interpreted divergently, challenging assumptions about right and wrong (Despret 2004; Haraway 2008; Puig de la Bellacasa 2017).

These tensions were not only morally striking but also shaped the design and practice of collaborative citizen science, as weekly language lessons became sites for negotiating knowledge, discussing multispecies ethics, and reflecting on local environmental engagement. The fieldwork shows that ethical pluralism complicates standard approaches to participation: what counts as “responsible” or “caring” varies across actors, requiring citizen science initiatives to adapt to contested moral landscapes rather than imposing uniform scientific or ethical frameworks.

By foregrounding how moral controversies intersect with collaborative knowledge production, this study illustrates the methodological potential of eco-ethnography to make citizen science more attentive, context-sensitive, and socially accountable, especially in situations where environmental practices and values are politically, culturally, or ethically contested. In this sense, attending to ethical ambiguities in the field contributes to broader discussions on polarization, inclusion, and the negotiation of authority in participatory science.

Paper short abstract

This paper argues that citizen science initiatives in Sri Lanka’s Negombo Lagoon often reproduce epistemic hierarchies rather than democratise knowledge. Drawing on eco-ethnography, I propose attentiveness as a method to transform technocratic volunteerism into a justice-oriented ethic of care.

Paper long abstract

Climate urgency is increasingly reshaping environmental governance through what can be described as technologies of anticipation. In Sri Lanka’s Negombo Lagoon, global and local scientific frameworks—such as Blue Carbon initiatives and IUCN Red List classifications—reorder ecological value by privileging specific ecosystems and species, while effectively abandoning degraded habitats and non-commercial forms of life. These anticipatory regimes reproduce hierarchies between valued and devalued life, producing a polarised socio-ecological landscape in which small-scale fishers are criminalised for subsistence practices, while politically connected developers often degrade habitats with impunity.

Drawing on eco-ethnographic fieldwork conducted with fishers, scientists, and conservation actors, this paper examines how these regimes intersect in ways that often undermine local knowledge systems. I situate my analysis within citizen science initiatives, approaching them not as neutral technical tools but as contested political practices. By engaging directly with these initiatives, I trace how they may extract local knowledge while simultaneously depoliticising the structural inequalities embedded in conservation governance.

I argue that eco-ethnographic attentiveness to the entanglements between human and non-human worlds—including “problematic” life forms such as jellyfish—renders these tensions visible rather than allowing them to be smoothed over by technocratic consensus. Ultimately, the paper reflects on the ethical stakes of anthropological engagement in a time of climate urgency. I suggest that a methodological shift toward eco-ethnographic attentiveness can reorient citizen science away from extractive volunteerism and toward an ethic of care. Valuing these “abandoned” relations is crucial for imagining more accountable and less polarised forms of environmental governance and coastal resilience.