Understanding the (inter) disciplinary and institutional diversity of citizen science: A survey of current practice in Germany and Austria

Citizen science has become more popular in recent years, quickly taking on a variety of potentially conflicting characteristics: a way to collect massive data sets at relatively low cost, a way to break science out of the ivory tower and better engage the public, an approach to educate lay people in scientific methods. But the extent of current citizen science practice-the types of actors and scientific disciplines who take part-is still poorly understood. This article builds on recent surveys of citizen science in PLOS One by analyzing citizen science practice in Germany and Austria through the projects on two online platforms. We find evidence supporting previous findings that citizen science is a phenomenon strongest in biodiversity and environmental monitoring research, but at home in a number of scientific fields, such as history and geography. In addition, our survey method yields new insights into citizen science projects initiated by non-scientific actors. We close by discussing additional methodological considerations in attempting to present a cross-disciplinary overview of citizen science

Processo e desconstrução: estruturas recursivas entre cozinha e design

From the triangulation kitchen, design and process this study searches evidence for bridging process between the fields of kitchen and design following Buchanan’s theory of rethinking placements over categories by way of signs, things, actions and thoughts. Kitchen and design are thus understood as liberal arts disciplines seeking to privilege a placement-based approach to projectual practice. Deconstruction was instrumental for exploring and testing the presence of recursive structures —elements carrying the essential information that generates similar patterns visible on different fields— intersecting the two fields, aiming to prove if and whence kitchen may contribute to expand the knowledge of design. Pallasmaa’s conception of an architecture of the senses, for whom the role of the body is understood as the locus of perception, thought and consciousness, helped explore and convoke the space of kitchen visited by artists and designers throughout recent history, as a means to establish relations between theories, processes, and projectual methodologies in kitchen and design. The reading of the space finds its translation through diverse processes applied by these creators leading to an understanding of a kitchen milieu: process as context. The empirical work with the research sample practices allowed for a discourse within, between and beyond individual samples to reveal the dialogical abilities of the applied processes. From the interpretation of the empirical work it is suggested that kitchen multiplies design (k x d). It implies that the context of kitchen multiplies the space of the discipline of design, becoming, in Buchanan’s term, a “quasi-subject matter of design thinking”. If so, kitchen as other placements may offer, or are open to receive and edify, an expanded view of the discipline of design. Considering findings of the three main typologies (education, research, process) it suggests transversality and integrates fundamental knowledge dimensions as the capability for negotiation between different actors/disciplines. This is made visible through the practices that comprise the research sample, namely curiosity, context, scale, desire, care. This study recommends further research into the transformative potential and imaginary of the kitchen/canteen in liberal arts education.A partir da triangulação cozinha, design e processo, este estudo investiga a evidência para o processo de ligação entre as áreas de cozinha e de design, de acordo com a teoria de Buchanan de repensar mais os posicionamentos que as categorias mediante sinais, coisas, ações e pensamentos. Assim, cozinha e design são entendidos como disciplinas das artes liberais, procurando privilegiar uma abordagem baseada no posicionamento em relação à prática projectual. A desconstrução foi fundamental para explorar e testar a presença de estruturas recursivas —elementos que comportam a informação essencial que gera padrões semelhantes em áreas diferentes— entrecruzando as duas áreas, visando provar se e a partir de onde a cozinha pode contribuir para expandir o conhecimento sobre o design. A concepção de Pallasmaa de uma arquitetura dos sentidos, para quem o papel do corpo é entendido como o locus da percepção, do pensamento e da consciência, ajudou a explorar e a convocar o espaço da cozinha, visitado por artistas e designers ao longo da história recente, como um meio de estabelecer relações entre teorias, processos e metodologias projectuais na cozinha e no design. A leitura do espaço encontra a sua tradução através de diversos processos aplicados por estes criadores, levando a um entendimento de um milieu de cozinha: o processo como contexto. O trabalho empírico com as práticas da amostra de investigação permitiu um discurso dentro, entre e para além das amostras individuais para revelar as capacidades dialógicas dos processos aplicados. A partir da interpretação do trabalho empírico, sugere-se que a cozinha multiplica o design (k x d). Isto implica que o contexto da cozinha multiplica o espaço da disciplina de design, tornando-se, na terminologia de Buchanan, uma “matéria de quase-sujeito de design thinking”. Se assim for, a cozinha, tal como outros posicionamentos, pode oferecer ou estar aberta a receber e a edificar uma visão alargada da disciplina de design. Considerando os resultados das três principais tipologias (educação, investigação, processo), sugere transversalidade e integra dimensões de conhecimento fundamentais como a capacidade de negociação entre diferentes actores/disciplinas. Isto torna-se visível através das práticas que incluem amostra de investigação, nomeadamente curiosidade, contexto, escala, desejo, cuidado. Este estudo recomenda desenvolver investigação sobre o potencial e o imaginário transformadores da cozinha/cantina na educação das artes liberais.Programa Doutoral em Desig

Biohacking and code convergence : a transductive ethnography

Cette thèse se déploie dans un espace de discours et de pratiques revendicatrices, à l’inter- section des cultures amateures informatiques et biotechniques, euro-américaines contempo- raines. La problématique se dessinant dans ce croisement culturel examine des métaphores et analogies au coeur d’un traffic intense, au milieu de voies de commmunications imposantes, reliant les technologies informatiques et biotechniques comme lieux d’expression médiatique. L’examen retrace les lignes de force, les médiations expressives en ces lieux à travers leurs manifestations en tant que codes —à la fois informatiques et génétiques— et reconnaît les caractères analogiques d’expressivité des codes en tant que processus de convergence. Émergeant lentement, à partir des années 40 et 50, les visions convergentes des codes ont facilité l’entrée des ordinateurs personnels dans les marchés, ainsi que dans les garages de hackers, alors que des bricoleurs de l’informatique s’en réclamaient comme espace de liberté d’information —et surtout d’innovation. Plus de cinquante ans plus tard, l’analogie entre codes informatiques et génétiques sert de moteur aux revendications de liberté, informant cette fois les nouvelles applications de la biotechnologie de marché, ainsi que l’activité des biohackers, ces bricoleurs de garage en biologie synthétique. Les pratiques du biohacking sont ainsi comprises comme des individuations : des tentatives continues de résoudre des frictions, des tensions travaillant les revendications des cultures amateures informatiques et biotechniques. Une des manières de moduler ces tensions s’incarne dans un processus connu sous le nom de forking, entrevu ici comme l’expérience d’une bifurcation. Autrement dit, le forking est ici définit comme passage vers un seuil critique, déclinant la technologie et la biologie sur plusieurs modes. Le forking informe —c’est-à-dire permet et contraint— différentes vi- sions collectives de l’ouverture informationnelle. Le forking intervient aussi sur les plans des iii semio-matérialités et pouvoirs d’action investis dans les pratiques biotechniques et informa- tiques. Pris comme processus de co-constitution et de différentiation de l’action collective, les mouvements de bifurcation invitent les trois questions suivantes : 1) Comment le forking catalyse-t-il la solution des tensions participant aux revendications des pratiques du bioha- cking ? 2) Dans ce processus de solution, de quelles manières les revendications changent de phase, bifurquent et se transforment, parfois au point d’altérer radicalement ces pratiques ? 3) Quels nouveaux problèmes émergent de ces solutions ? L’effort de recherche a trouvé ces questions, ainsi que les plans correspondants d’action sémio-matérielle et collective, incarnées dans trois expériences ethnographiques réparties sur trois ans (2012-2015) : la première dans un laboratoire de biotechnologie communautaire new- yorkais, la seconde dans l’émergence d’un groupe de biotechnologie amateure à Montréal, et la troisième à Cork, en Irlande, au sein du premier accélérateur d’entreprises en biologie synthétique au monde. La logique de l’enquête n’est ni strictement inductive ou déductive, mais transductive. Elle emprunte à la philosophie de la communication et de l’information de Gilbert Simondon et découvre l’épistémologie en tant qu’acte de création opérant en milieux relationnels. L’heuristique transductive offre des rencontres inusitées entre les métaphores et les analogies des codes. Ces rencontres étonnantes ont aménagé l’expérience de la conver- gence des codes sous forme de jeux d’écritures. Elles se sont retrouvées dans la recherche ethnographique en tant que processus transductifs.This dissertation examines creative practices and discourses intersecting computer and biotech cultures. It queries influential metaphors and analogies on both sides of the inter- section, and their positioning of biotech and information technologies as expression media. It follows mediations across their incarnations as codes, both computational and biological, and situates their analogical expressivity and programmability as a process of code conver- gence. Converging visions of technological freedom facilitated the entrance of computers in 1960’s Western hobbyist hacker circles, as well as in consumer markets. Almost fifty years later, the analogy drives claims to freedom of information —and freedom of innovation— from biohacker hobbyist groups to new biotech consumer markets. Such biohacking practices are understood as individuations: as ongoing attempts to resolve frictions, tensions working through claims to freedom and openness animating software and biotech cultures. Tensions get modulated in many ways. One of them, otherwise known as “forking,” refers here to a critical bifurcation allowing for differing iterations of biotechnical and computa- tional configurations. Forking informs —that is, simultaneously affords and constrains— differing collective visions of openness. Forking also operates on the materiality and agency invested in biotechnical and computational practices. Taken as a significant process of co- constitution and differentiation in collective action, bifurcation invites the following three questions: 1) How does forking solve tensions working through claims to biotech freedom? 2) In this solving process, how can claims bifurcate and transform to the point of radically altering biotech practices? 3) what new problems do these solutions call into existence? This research found these questions, and both scales of material action and agency, in- carnated in three extensive ethnographical journeys spanning three years (2012-2015): the first in a Brooklyn-based biotech community laboratory, the second in the early days of a biotech community group in Montreal, and the third in the world’s first synthetic biology startup accelerator in Cork, Ireland. The inquiry’s guiding empirical logic is neither solely deductive or inductive, but transductive. It borrows from Gilbert Simondon’s philosophy of communication and information to experience epistemology as an act of analogical creation involving the radical, irreversible transformation of knower and known. Transductive heuris- tics offer unconvential encounters with practices, metaphors and analogies of code. In the end, transductive methods acknowledge code convergence as a metastable writing games, and ethnographical research itself as a transductive process

Un voyage ethnographique au cœur du phénomène du biohacking : pour une redéfinition médiatique du vivant

Ce mémoire de maîtrise est une étude d’un phénomène émergent, le biohacking. Depuis 2008 et la création du groupe Boslab à Boston, le biohacking se pratique dans différents groupes autour du monde. Les biohackers se réunissent autour d’un vivant que l’on ne découvre plus mais que l’on fabrique. Ils hackent, bricolent le vivant et son code génétique, comme l’on hackerait un programme informatique. À travers une ethnographie qui suit la création du groupe de biohacking de Montréal, mais aussi à travers une ethnographie en passant dans différents groupes d’Europe et d’Amérique du Nord, je propose de comprendre le phénomène du biohacking à travers une étude médiatique du vivant. Ainsi, je propose de penser le vivant comme un medium, entendu comme un intermédiaire, un moyen, mais surtout un milieu. Un milieu qui permet de placer la notion de relation au centre de la réflexion, plutôt que sur l’objet en lui même. Un milieu dans lequel des groupes se développent, vivent et cohabitent à l’intérieur d’une communauté plus grande. Des groupes qui échangent des matériaux, des connaissances et des pratiques, entres eux, mais aussi avec les grandes institutions. Cette recherche propose de repenser notre rapport au vivant pour comprendre un phénomène à la base d’une révolution scientifique et sociale.This thesis is a study of an emerging phenomenon, biohacking. Since 2008, and the creation of the Boslab in Boston, biohacking is practiced in different groups around the world. Biohackers meet around the idea that the living is no longer discovered but made. They hack, tinker the living and its genetic code, like one would hack a computer program. Through an ethnography that follows the creation of the biohacking group of Montreal, but also through an ethnography in different groups in Europe and North America, I propose to understand the phenomenon of biohacking through a media study of the living. I propose to think of the living as a medium, understood as an intermediary, a support, but above all an environment. A medium which places the notion of relation at the center of the reflection. An environment in which groups develop, live and cohabit in a larger community. These groups exchange materials, knowledge and practices, among themselves, but also with major institutions. This research proposes to rethink our relationship with the living to understand a phenomenon which could very well be the basis of a scientific and social revolution, biohacking

Unwrapping DIY enquiry: The study of 'enquiry' in DIY practice at individual, community & place levels

Do-It-Yourself (DIY) enquiry represents ownership over learning and action: figuring things out by oneself, experimenting, and questioning the state of things to find potential solutions to local concerns. It is an identifiable collective behaviour of self-reliance exhibited throughout our history but in the digital age and in societies with increasing levels of education, the way DIY practice unfolds is little understood. Traditional studies on public engagement in science and technology and perspectives on production of knowledge and technology have focused primarily on institutionally mediated methods of public participation and the validity of public contributions to established fields. This thesis research makes empirical, theoretical, and methodological contributions: using a multi-method approach and grounded theory for qualitative data analysis to explore DIY enquiry in practice, community, and place. The three in-depth case studies explore the nature of the production of knowledge, the role of technologies, and the barriers and opportunities to public engagement in DIY enquiry. Participant observation of a community of DIY practice reveals its inner processes, interactions, and framings of science and technology and how DIY practice is performed through DIY tool use and development. The design and facilitation of a DIY workshop series demonstrates the initial stages of engagement in DIY enquiry and reveals that barriers and opportunities to engagement are mediated by frame of mind, setting, facilitation, and interactions. The observation of place-based citizen initiatives of DIY enquiry reveals its range of interconnected actions: development of techniques and strategies for tool development, data interpretation, and leveraging of knowledge and stance for advocacy. Together the cases reveal the transformative power of DIY enquiry, how it builds knowledge, culture, and identity and that engagement requires curiosity, courage, commitment, and foundational competencies. They also reveal an inherent tension between DIY enquiry framed as a means (seeking collective/organised actionable goals) and as an end (enabling personal empowerment). This research facilitates a better understanding of the democratic potential of public engagement in science in our time but it also promotes the leveraging of knowledge production between professional/institutional science and civil society