“Anyone can be a scientist”: Constructions of expertise and citizenship in citizen science literate activity

Citizen science, a set of practices that involves public, non-professional scientists in scientific research and policy, has since seen a steady rise since the mid-1990s (Woolley et al., 2016). The increase in citizen science projects in STEM mirrors the “public turn” in writing studies in that citizen science carries many of the same concerns regarding reciprocity and sustainability as service learning or community writing does in writing studies (Mathieu, 2005). By examining citizen science, I aim to build connections between STEM public outreach and community writing efforts while examining the possibilities and limitations of citizen science pedagogies. I argue that focusing on citizen science as an exemplar space allows writing studies researchers to reimagine notions of expertise and citizenship, especially as they relate to scientific becoming and literacy in public contexts. The central contribution of my research is a rich description of the embodied, relational, and affective nature of science communication that crosses supposed divides between university and community literate practices. In this dissertation, I trace the tools, texts, and spaces of citizen science with attention to the bodies excluded from those spaces. I analyze two focal projects: the Illinois Butterfly Monitoring Network (IBMN) and the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network (CoCoRaHS). Employing a situated approach, I draw on survey responses, interviews with citizen science participants and coordinators, text analyses, observations of trainings, and a focus group with coordinators to identify constructions of expertise and citizenship in the literate activity of IBMN and CoCoRaHS. I show how citizen scientists’ affective articulations of expertise shift across modes of communication and illustrate how citizen scientists both rely on and reject traditional formulations of expertise, seeking alternative framings to name non-institutional knowledge-making. This dissertation presents a new heuristic of expertise that unravels expert/nonexpert divisions, seeing science communication as a collective, ongoing and boundary-crossing project in which we all are invested.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

English

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2024

Author dc:creator

• Mericle, Megan

Contributors dc:contributor

• Gallagher, John
• Prior, Paul
• Littlefield, Melissa
• Cisneros, Josue D

• Writing Studies
• Citizen Science
• Community Science
• Literate Activity
• Citizenship
• Expertise
• Disciplinarity

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2024 Megan Mericle

Language dc:language

eng, en

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/124345

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/124345