Citizen science is key to the success of Future Earth Initiatives for urban sustainability. Emerging research in urban land teleconnections highlights the benefits of incorporating theoretical insights from political ecology and participatory action research. Reviewing some of the forces propelling the recent popularity of citizen science, this article outlines challenges to processes of collaboration between scientists and non-scientists. We distinguish these concerns from others that may arise from the data or other products resulting from citizen science projects. Careful consideration of the processes and products of citizen science could engender a more fruitful relationship between professional scientists and their research communities and help universities to build effective partnerships with those in wider society whose expertise comes from their life experience.
Theme 5 -Autonomous approaches to Action Research: Knowledge processes occurring in different spaces outside of mainstream institutions 22. Urban and rural women building economic solidarity between the city and the countryside: a political agroecological approach to food security 343
We examine the roles of the diverse co-inquirers involved in the power-equalizing action research project known as Prajateerpu. While privileging neither official expertise nor experiential knowledge over the other, we suggest the need to create arenas where expert knowledge is put under public scrutiny as a means of contributing to a redressing of the power imbalance that exists between the poor and elite social groups. We emphasize the important tensions that arose in Prajateerpu between the views of those participants whose analysis had become marginalized from decision-making processes and those who were in positions of power. Having reflected on the role of various actors in the two-year process, we look at the potential contributions processes such as Prajateerpu could make towards processes that aim to democratize knowledge and promote social justice.
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