Edelstein, Michael R.

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Clinical Sociology ReviewVolume 16 | Issue 1 Article 151-1-1998Citizen Science: A Study of People, Expertise andSustainable DevelopmentMichael R. EdelsteinRamapo College of New JerseyFollow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/csrThis Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@WayneState. It has been accepted for inclusion in Clinical SociologyReview by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@WayneState.Recommended CitationEdelstein, Michael R. (1998) "Citizen Science: A Study of People, Expertise and Sustainable Development," Clinical Sociology Review:Vol. 16: Iss. 1, Article 15.Available at: http://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/csr/vol16/iss1/15BOOK REVIEWS 105social activists often neglect. The writing is clear and well informed. Thesenior editor is Director of the Center for Urban Research and Learning atLoyola University in Chicago. He includes the World Wide Web address forthis and the Policy Action Group composed of Chicago community leadersand university researchers.This volume accomplishes its goal. There is convincing evidence thatuniversity researchers and poor people can collaborate to do research thatleads to social change. While there is ample warning that this is not easy to doand several case studies identify stresses in the collaboration, this reviewerwonders if the volume would have been strengthened by the inclusion of fail-ures. Some context for interpreting the 27 cases would have helped also. Eachsuccess reported in this volume is noteworthy but there is no sense that theseefforts are part of a social movement that will reduce inner-city misery. Thecases seem to be impressive but isolated events.The questions this reviewer has about this volume can be summed up bysaying that it has a Pollyannaish quality. The collaborative model proposed inthis volume can also be used by the affluent. When outsiders supply the moneythere is always the possibility that they will overtly or covertly influence theresults. These issues are identified in this volume but they are not stressedenough.This book is highly recommended as a supplemental text in courses inurban research, the community and community organization. The editors andtheir contributors have identified a series of issues relating to the role of theuniversity that needs to be more widely explored.Citizen Science: A Study of People, Expertise and Sustainable Develop-ment, by Alan Irwin. New York: Routledge, 1995. 216 pp. $59.95.ISBN 0-415-115148-5.Michael R. EdelsteinRamapo College of New JerseyIf the post-modern society suffers from the risks engendered by a nowlost faith in science and technology, then what changes in the practice of sci-ence and use of expertise are required for the necessary shift to a potentially"sustainable" society? Alan Irwin's Citizen Science provides a thoughtful analy-sis of this needed transformation. This new science is informed by the contex-tual knowledge of citizens as they exercise greater control over their lives,health and environment. Rather than supplanting the modernist ideal of uni-versal science, a citizen science would integrate vernacular knowledge and106 CLINICAL SOCIOLOGY REVIEW / 1998scientific expertise within flexible and open discourse about the problemsconfronted by people in real life. This conversation is by nature self-criticaland self-aware and reflexive about the uncertainties and limitations confrontedin any local application. The result of this dialectic of local and scientificexpertise is mutual growth: public empowerment is pushed to incorporatenew competencies while science is challenged to stretch toward new areas ofdiscovery.However, the above conditions are far from the current reality. Thus, muchof Citizen Science consists of a litany of the sins committed in applying mod-ern science to policy. Using such cases as the conflict over the use of theherbicide 2,4,5-T, the controversy over "mad cow" disease, and the challengeof instituting local policies for industrial disaster response, Irwin illustratesthe divergence between the modern "enlightenment" and post-modern "criti-cal" approaches to science. In the modern formulation, science is painted asrational, authoritative, consensual and independent while the publics' distrustof risk policy is explained by their ignorance and emotionalism. From a criti-cal post-modern perspective, in contrast, this distrust reflects the failure ofscience to address uncertainty, disagreement, and divergence between differ-ent disciplines, even concealing these limitations to preserve the appearanceof validity and to legitimize policies. Practiced forms of decision making placetechnical issues, scientific analysis, and expertise at the center of environ-mental risk issues while reducing the public to the role of ignorant witnesses.The failure of such "top down" decision making is evident, for example, whenefforts to inform local people of emergency procedures don't make sense tothe targeted population in light of their understanding of risk in the context oflocal life.While at times the public is muted by the authority of scientific evidencethat contradicts local understandings, in other instances, citizens use their lo-cal knowledge to challenge scientific expertise. These instances of "popularepidemiology" are grounded in the actual experience of the respondents andseek to prove that local victims have been harmed rather than discover broadlygeneralizable and universal findings. Public epidemiology was evidenced, forexample, when British farm workers battled against use of the herbicide 2,4,5-T. Abstract expert proclamations about safety contradicted their direct knowl-edge of the variability and complexity of actual field conditions, operatingcircumstances, and social factors during the spraying of pesticides. Furtherarmed with their own survey data on health outcomes, the farm workers werein a position to scientifically prove harm. Irwin thus offers a strong applica-tion of the Risk Society theory of Beck and Giddens integrated with a sensi-tivity to the social construction of knowledge. It is unfortunate that Irwin'swork was not cross-fertilized by the research of U.S. social scientists on theBOOK REVIEWS 107social and psychological impacts of contamination. There is much commonresonance around themes such as local knowledge and lay epidemiology.Having offered the promise of Citizen Science as an alternative paradigmfor science, Irwin waits to the last chapter to admit "there is no easy synthesison offer which can replace enlightenment/modernist thinking." The volumeis more reactive than proactive. The discussion of building sustainable fu-tures is dominated by tales of failure rather than success, even in examiningsuch important models as that of the European science shops or the CanadianMacKenzie River Pipeline Inquiry. Thus, as attractive as is Irwin's vision,one cannot but be disappointed by the sparse delivery on the promise of Citi-zen Science. Perhaps the paucity of positive and successful models is itselfinstructive, a challenge to the thesis that is not addressed. Lacking indicationsof practical success, Irwin is left to cite abstract notions about a "greenerscience" that asks of any application "which form of science is appropriateand in what relationship to other forms of knowledge." With the public aspeer reviewers, this new science would become better able to address theambiguities of the real world. Irwin's integration thus bridges the post-mod-ernist critique of contamination with the socially transformative steps neces-sary to reach sustainability. This is a vision that I, for one, share, and, evenabsent claims for idealized applications and successes, Citizens Science cor-rectly charts the direction that field experimentation, innovative practice, andenvironmental action research should urgently pursue.The New Language of Qualitative Method, by Jaber F. Gubrium and JamesA. Holstein. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. 244 pp. ISBN 0-19-509993-1 (cloth), 0-19-509994-X (pbk.)Susan Brown EveUniversity of North TexasThe purpose of this book is to analyze the way the language of qualitativemethod relates to how researchers view and describe social life. The authors,Jaber Gubrium and James Holstein, describe the four most influential ap-proaches to qualitative research in contemporary social science. These fourapproaches are naturalism, ethnomethodology, emotionalism, andpostmodernism. Naturalism is defined as "...a way of knowing that locatesmeaningful reality in the immediate settings of people's daily affairs (p. 7)."Naturalists seek "...descriptions of people and interaction as they exist andunfold in their native habitats...in order to understand what things mean tothem (pp. 6-7)." Ethnomethodologists listen "...to naturally occurring con-

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