Projections—the way that people collectively talk about the future—shape action in the present. This sociological observation has implications for citizen science initiatives that aim to confront powerful industries and produce social change. When people participate in citizen science associations—such as watershed monitoring organizations, the subject of this study—their actions and democratic sensibilities are affected by the ways that organizers and other volunteers project the future uses of the environmental data they are collecting. In this case, hundreds of people are participating in volunteer watershed monitoring groups in response to the “fracking” boom in the northeastern United States. Most of these efforts emphasize the collection of “baseline” data, which they view as essential to future efforts to hold polluters accountable. However, these projects tend to channel public concern about fracking toward future scientific controversies, instead of political action now to prevent pollution. Furthermore, baseline watershed monitoring efforts reinforce the epistemology of regulatory agencies, rather than generating alternative forms of knowledge about watershed health. Organizers actively work to convince volunteers that their work has meaning and that they are being empowered, but future-oriented data collection is often at odds with volunteers’ current-day motivations. Scholars and activists have often heralded citizen science as a way to radically democratize environmental governance; however, to achieve this, citizen science must project futures that stimulate transformative actions in the present.
...MoreArticle Kristoffer Whitney; Melanie A. Kiechle (2017) Introduction: Counting on Nature. Science as Culture (pp. 1-10).
Book
Lehner, Peter;
Deans, Bob;
(2010)
In Deep Water: The Anatomy of a Disaster, the Fate of the Gulf, and Ending Our Oil Addiction
(/isis/citation/CBB001033677/)
Article
Barrett, Mary L.;
(2010)
Earthen Pits in U.S. Petroleum Fields: A History of Nomenclature and Related Usage
(/isis/citation/CBB001033667/)
Article
Lendel, Iryna;
(Summer 2014)
Social Impacts of Shale Development on Municipalities
(/isis/citation/CBB104627993/)
Article
Brian Frehner;
(2017)
Gasland; FrackNation; and Fracking: The New Energy Rush (Film Forum)
(/isis/citation/CBB060239550/)
Article
Haller, Lea;
Gisler, Monika;
(2014)
Lösung für das Knappheitsproblem oder nationales Risiko? Auf Erdölsuche in der Schweiz
(/isis/citation/CBB001214204/)
Book
Brice, William R.;
(2009)
Myth, Legend, Reality: Edwin Laurentine Drake and the Early Oil Industry
(/isis/citation/CBB001033680/)
Article
Spencer, Jeff A.;
(2010)
Early Commercialized Views of Spindletop, Texas and Jennings, Louisiana Oil Fields
(/isis/citation/CBB001033666/)
Article
Anduaga, Aitor;
(2010)
Crustal Layering, Simplicity, and the Oil Industry: The Alteration of an Epistemic Paradigm by a Commercial Environment
(/isis/citation/CBB001024227/)
Book
Leif Wenar;
(2015)
Blood Oil: Tyrants, Violence, and the Rules that Run the World
(/isis/citation/CBB711752069/)
Article
Evans, Joshua;
Garvin, Theresa;
(2009)
“You're In Oil Country”: Moral Tales of Citizen Action against Petroleum Development in Alberta, Canada
(/isis/citation/CBB001031184/)
Book
Lucier, Paul;
(2008)
Scientists and Swindlers: Consulting on Coal and Oil in America, 1820--1890
(/isis/citation/CBB000951111/)
Book
McKinney, Gary S.;
(2008)
Oil on the Brain: The Discovery of Oil and the Excitement of the Boom in Northwestern Pennsylvania, Armstrong, Butler, Clarion, Venango Counties
(/isis/citation/CBB001033679/)
Book
Chad Parker;
(2015)
Making the Desert Modern: Americans, Arabs, and Oil on the Saudi Frontier, 1933-1973
(/isis/citation/CBB523735271/)
Article
Brice, William R.;
(2010)
The Drake Well and Unintended Consequences
(/isis/citation/CBB001033668/)
Article
John L. Conley;
(2013)
World War II Tank Truck Industry Support: An Army Might Move on its Stomach, But Everything Else Moves on Oil
(/isis/citation/CBB721692686/)
Article
Jones, Christopher F.;
(2013)
Building More Just Energy Infrastructure: Lessons from the Past
(/isis/citation/CBB001320574/)
Thesis
Wylie, Sara Ann;
(2011)
Corporate Bodies and Chemical Bonds: An STS Analysis of Natural Gas Development in the United States
(/isis/citation/CBB001567308/)
Thesis
Frehner, Brian;
(2004)
From Creekology to Geology: Finding and Conserving Oil on the Southern Plains,1859--1930
(/isis/citation/CBB001561526/)
Article
Tarr, Joel A.;
(2014)
Toxic Legacy: The Environmental Impact of the Manufactured Gas Industry in the United States
(/isis/citation/CBB001421227/)
Book
Andrea Olive;
(2014)
Land, Stewardship, and Legitimacy: Endangered Species Policy in Canada and the United States
(/isis/citation/CBB109909669/)
Be the first to comment!