Table 1
BIPOC, disabled, and neurodivergent attendees’ positive and negative associations with participatory science.
| ASSOCIATIONS | THEME | EXAMPLE |
|---|---|---|
| Positive | Feeling a sense of belonging as a scientist | “Using PS to learn and to gather data, and making people scientists that wouldn’t necessarily call themselves scientists, is really important.” – POC-only attendee |
| Connecting with nature | “It can help people … feel connected and come in closer relationship with the land.” – POC-DI/ND attendee | |
| Providing representation | “Participatory science to me is important because if you have different groups of people – diverse, whatever – participating in it you get all this extra data that you wouldn’t … you get a better picture and so people feel more represented.” – POC-DI/ND attendee | |
| Contributing to science and conservation | “I’ve had a really good experience … being able to have a hand in keeping track of data that leads to actual legislation has been really encouraging.” – POC-DI/ND attendee | |
| Serving communities | “One thing I’ve noticed with participatory science is when the data can be shared with folks so that they can utilize it…that also encourages us to then reciprocally participate in that as well.” – WHT-DI/ND attendee | |
| Being in community | “Citizen science and participatory science gives me a way to feel connected to a community that is also interested in data collection and research.” – WHT-DI/ND attendee | |
| Learning | “I think participatory science is really crucial to learning about the environment and learning about nature” – POC-only attendee | |
| Keeping records of observations | “I love using eBird to track my observations!” – WHT-DI/ND attendee | |
| Negative | Exclusion from spaces | “I’ve been made aware of this [participatory] science recently through a bird collision project in Chicago and went to a meeting with them. I felt excited to learn new information but ultimately felt lonely as the only brown and ‘alternatively’ dressed person.” – POC-DI/ND attendee |
| Hierarchy between professional researchers and participants | “While I appreciate what citizen science intends to do in bringing the viewpoints of so-called lay people or just regular folks to professional scientists, I feel like the separation of it at all sort of furthers the racist chauvinism that permeates science in general, where only the learned, the academic tower, the Ivory Tower people’s’ opinions matters. And everybody else might have an opinion, but it’s unlearned. And so it’s gonna be weighted less than.” – POC-DI/ND attendee | |
| Doubts about quality of data | “I wonder about data signal to noise … how, if at all, are they accounting for accuracy in data input?” – WHT-DI/ND attendee | |
| Projects do not align with priorities given limited resources to participate | “[Projects that] have a bit more structure and want you monitoring on a specific schedule are a bit harder, for … having the spoons [available energy] to go [participate].” – WHT-DI/ND attendee |