Ecological kin‐making in the multispecies muddle: An analytical framework for understanding embodied environmental citizen science experiences

Abstract

AbstractDespite the current proliferation of citizen science projects, the affordances of ecological citizen science to generate transformational thinking amongst project participants are seldom considered. This study investigated citizen science as an experiential ecopedagogic praxis that may provide a context for developing relational perspectives and sensorial engagements between human and non‐human participants. A new humanist, phenomenological standpoint and narrative analysis framework were adopted. The narratives of five river monitoring citizen science participants are presented herein to illustrate an emergent Ecological kin‐making through citizen science framework. Participants’ narratives demonstrate how individuals engaged in caring practices through six embodied stages of ecological kin‐making through citizen science: encountering the river (1); recognising the non‐human world (2); river‐bank identification (3); developing a sense of response‐ability (4); enacting responsibility (5); and enhanced ecological kinship (6). As characterised by the infinity‐loop framework, citizen science emerges from this study as an attuned, ongoing, and caring praxis of ecological kin‐making. New co‐species kinship relationships are formed, maintained, and strengthened through participation. The study highlights that where citizen science projects are designed with a participant community focus, they can create the conditions for self‐directed and lifelong ecopedagogy that could be transformational for humans and non‐humans in times of ecological and climate crisis. The study implies the catalytic validity of citizen science to provide a space‐time context for participants to enact a ‘response‐ability’ toward local environments and human and non‐human dwellers, vital to enabling participants to experience a sense of agency and to take local action on environmental issues.