Short Abstract

We invite ethnographic papers that critically reflect on the promises, pitfalls, and practicalities of citizen science and eco-ethnography as innovative approaches within anthropology at a time of climate urgency.

Long Abstract

As climate change intensifies and public trust in science becomes increasingly fractured, anthropologists are experimenting with new methods to engage more directly with socioecological realities and public concerns. We invite ethnographic papers that critically reflect on the promises, pitfalls, and practicalities of citizen science and eco-ethnography as innovative approaches within anthropology.

“Citizen science”, even though difficult to define (see Hackley et al. 2020), refers mainly to the involvement of volunteers (“citizens”) in scientific research that benefit both society and the environment. Citizen science thus opens up inquiry to lay participants, creating spaces for collaboration, knowledge production, and public engagement. Eco-ethnography (Grace-McCaskey et al. 2019), then, is a method that enriches citizen science through ethnographic insights — fostering collaboration, contextual depth, and recognition of cultural and ecological dynamics in environmental research and practice. It foregrounds entanglements of human and more-than-human worlds, offering a methodological shift that seeks to decenter the human while remaining grounded in ethnographic attentiveness. Both approaches challenge conventional boundaries—between researcher and researched, expert and layperson, human and environment.

We seek contributions that explore how these methods are adapted, resisted, or transformed in practice. What kinds of relationships, data, and ethical dilemmas emerge in eco-ethnographic or citizen science projects? How do these approaches navigate the tensions between scientific authority and embodied situated knowledge, or between academic critique and public relevance? Can they help anthropology respond to societal polarization by fostering more inclusive and dialogical forms of knowledge-making?

We welcome papers that:

• Reflect on successes, failures, and adaptations of eco-ethnographic and/or citizen science methods;

• Explore how these approaches reshape fieldwork, analysis, and anthropological writing;

• Consider their potential to bridge divides between academia and the public, or between polarized communities;

• Engage with the political and epistemological stakes of doing anthropology in a time of climate urgency.

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