Citizen Social Science for Improved Quality of Life: Research, Interventions, Evaluations

Abstract

This article argues for a new methodological approach to research and impact in the social sciences—one based on sustained investment in people and projects at the community level, with the explicit aim of creating citizen-led solutions. The article draws on five years of experience in developing a citizen science methodology in Beirut, Lebanon, in which collaboration between academic researchers and citizen scientists has generated citizen-led interventions for numerous local challenges. We contend that long-term collaborative research and action enable the accumulation of knowledge within research teams, and strengthen trust and the duty of care towards others in the team and the community. We then present data from evaluation interviews with intervention users, showing how trust and the duty of care in research translate into intervention designs that are responsive to local needs, and forms of sociality that enhance the value of interventions for users’ quality of life.