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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.