The intellectual tools that are needed for the eliciting of nature's secrets may have derived from the Stone Age art of reading tracks

Tracking Science: An Alternative for Those Excluded by Citizen Science. Louis Liebenberg et al. Citizen Science, Mar 3 2021. http://doi.org/10.5334/cstp.284

Rolf Degen's take: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1367182399658995720

Abstract: In response to recent discussion about terminology, we propose “tracking science” as a term that is more inclusive than citizen science. Our suggestion is set against a post-colonial political background and large-scale migrations, in which “citizen” is becoming an increasingly contentious term. As a diverse group of authors from several continents, our priority is to deliberate a term that is all-inclusive, so that it could be adopted by everyone who participates in science or contributes to scientific knowledge, regardless of socio-cultural background. For example, current citizen science terms used for Indigenous knowledge imply that such practitioners belong to a sub-group that is other, and therefore marginalized. Our definition for “tracking science” does not exclude Indigenous peoples and their knowledge contributions and may provide a space for those who currently participate in citizen science, but want to contribute, explore, and/or operate beyond its confinements. Our suggestion is not that of an immediate or complete replacement of terminology, but that the notion of tracking science can be used to complement the practice and discussion of citizen science where it is contextually appropriate or needed. This may provide a breathing space, not only to explore alternative terms, but also to engage in robust, inclusive discussion on what it means to do science or create scientific knowledge. In our view, tracking science serves as a metaphor that applies broadly to the scientific community—from modern theoretical physics to ancient Indigenous knowledge.

Keywords: citizen science, tracking science, Indigenous communities, citizenship, immigration, inclusive

Examples of Tracking Science

The definition of tracking science describes, among other things, what Indigenous communities in Africa have been doing for more than 100,000 years (Liebenberg 1990, 2013a, 2013b). Tracking science does not propose a relativist version of Indigenous knowledge that fails to make distinctions between evidence-based scientific knowledge and mythology. Instead, it attends to the empirical elements of knowledge production across diverse sets of people that, in practice, may contribute to the larger body of scientific knowledge about the world. For example, we do not think that we should “abolish the distinction between science and fiction” (Woolgar 1988, p. 166), but should consider the politics and power involved in determining what scientific facts come to be accepted, much as science studies scholar Bruno Latour suggests (Latour 2003, 2005, p. 87–93). Tracking science addresses this issue by recognizing diverse epistemological traditions without reducing them to the stale knowledge-belief binary opposition. In this context, Hansson (2018, p. 518) explains that:

“the discussion is often couched in terms of comparisons between ‘indigenous belief systems’ and modern science. This is a misguided and unfair comparison. In particular, the common comparison between modern science and the magical and religious thinking in indigenous societies is remarkably misconceived. Religious and spiritual thinking in traditional societies should be compared to religious and spiritual thinking in modern societies. Similarly, modern science should be compared to those elements in traditional societies that are most similar to modern science.”

We do not seek to reproduce the bifurcation Hansson describes, and acknowledge that the lines between scientific and religious thinking are often not as clear as this characterization. Nevertheless, we insist that similar elements of knowledge can be commensurable across societies. Tracking science is what Indigenous communities depended on for their survival for millennia—evidence-based scientific knowledge that had an objective correlation with the real world. Furthermore, in contemporary times, Indigenous communities have been involved in scientific research as well as biodiversity and environmental monitoring in as far afield as the Kalahari in Africa (Stander et al. 1997; Liebenberg et al. 2017; Keeping et al. 2018), the Arctic (Danielsen et al. 2014; Johnson et al. 2015), and Australia (Ansell and Koening 2011; Ens 2012), to name but a few examples. See also the video and article by Cross and Page (2020): Indigenous trackers are teaching scientists about wildlife https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/09/africa/louis-liebenberg-c2e-spc-int/index.html. In today’s world, Indigenous farmers who follow ancient traditions in performing advanced plant breeding and agricultural experiments maintain crop biodiversity by in situ conservation, which is much more efficient than storage of seeds (Altieri and Merrick 1987; Hanson 2019). Other examples include Aboriginal burning practices offering alternative fire regimes that have been incorporated into rangeland management in Australia (Verran 2002; Cook et al. 2012), the use of fire to manage natural resources by the Kalahari San (Humphrey et al. 2021), and local farmers contributing to soil science in the Philippines (Richelle et al. 2018).

Within the modern urban and rural context, tracking science could become the contemporary equivalent of Indigenous knowledge, local knowledge, or even vernacular knowledge (see Richelle et al. 2018), where urban and rural communities discover and develop their own scientific understanding of their environment—without the constraints of citizenship. This has been happening in the United Kingdom, and probably other parts of the world, for more than a century (Pocock et al. 2015). The Biological Records Centre, established in 1964 in the United Kingdom, is volunteer led and involves an estimated 70,000 people. Their datasets are long-term, have large geographic extent, and are taxonomically diverse. Significantly, many recorders undertake individual research projects on their own or with others, or make observations on novel interactions or behavior. They publish these in various journals and newsletters. We suggest that what the Biological Records Centre has been doing is closer to the definition of tracking science than the dominant, but not only, participatory models of citizen science, in which it is presumed that the research endeavors in which community members participate should be planned and led by professional scientists.

Perhaps one of the most inspirational scientific papers was published by The Royal Society in the journal Biology Letters. This paper, “Blackawton Bees,” describing an original discovery on the vision of bumblebees, was designed, conducted, and written by a group of 8-10-year-old children outside of London, UK. The children asked the questions, hypothesized the answers, designed the games (the experiments) to test these hypotheses, and analyzed the data. They also drew the figures (in color pencil) and wrote the paper. The paper was inspired not by the scientific literature, but by their own observations of the world. In a sense it reveals science in its truest (most pure) form (Blackawton et al., 2010).

Our definition of tracking science would also incorporate the work of eminent independent scientists who changed how we think about the world in which we live, and produced groundbreaking scientific innovations working outside the domain of institutionalized science. These would include the 19th-century naturalists Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace, co-discoverers of natural selection, along with 20th-century giants such as Rachel Carson, Jane Goodall, and Albert Einstein. Tracking science therefore provides both opportunities and role models for young people who want to go beyond the confines of participatory citizen science. It has the potential to generate a recognized knowledge network wherein their aspirations and explorations may result in unexpected innovations in science and technology.