What is a citizen science (CS) without science as an infrastructure? We investigated five citizen observatories and observed discrepancies between founders’ visions of continuity and the vulnerable reality of the observatories. We explain this with a distinction between CS and citizen observatory.
Long abstract:
Participatory environmental monitoring initiatives, as responses to environmental concerns, attracted attention from publics, scientists, and environmental management. These initiatives, in order to fulfil their vision of monitoring, require continuity and stability. However, most of them are short-lived or temporally vulnerable. This research has investigated the temporal vulnerabilities of these initiatives. Through qualitative analysis, this text has compared four citizen observatories created with visions of long-term monitoring or empowering local communities. In the course of this research, discrepancies were observed between the founders’ expectations of continuity in environmental monitoring and the vulnerable reality of citizen observatories. These discrepancies are explained by an analytical distinction between Citizen Science and Citizen Observatory, wherein the latter lacks ties to scientific infrastructure. The findings show that lacking science as an infrastructure leads to a lack of legitimacy to fill infrastructural gaps and thus prevents citizen observatories from fulfilling their vision of long-term environmental monitoring.