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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.