Citizen science.
Citizen science, science of the commons, participatory science, open science: all of them suggest that science is in some way not open, and ask when science stopped being open, and why science should be thought of as an open project. Open means that anyone can be part of it, with or without expert or prior knowledge.
Because of the privatisation and the ever stronger commodification of knowledge, we have begun to suspect that our model of social communication of science has failed, and that science is not a popular subject or one of public interest. The centralised museum model has proved very ineffective at transmitting knowledge and leaving visitors curious: its impact is minuscule. This model takes for granted that people do not have information and that it has to be provided to them from outside, in a fairly static way — museums, lecture series, scientific articles. This model raises the question of whether science outreach is the only possible path between science and society, or whether there are other new forms to explore.
These new forms would recover a certain idea of science less tied to expert knowledge — the knowledge of a selected group of people who think in a certain way or who hold some particular intelligence about the world — and instead think of a science closer to citizens and designed around the problems they actually have. A citizenship involved in the process of producing the questions, and also of the answers that science gives.
This form of “new science” includes experience as a valid factor for generating scientific knowledge. So far, Western science has treated knowledge through experience as too easily influenced, poor, and as nothing more than noise to be removed from the cognitive enterprise in order to produce objectivity.
Citizen science, or science of the commons — “of the commons” because it is popular, or of anyone — invites citizenship to be part of the whole process of knowledge generation, and not merely a support in data collection for scientists. Citizenship can and should be part of the entire process: from framing the research question, through methodology and research, and it can be independent of experts or seek their support for questions or validation. That is why it is called science of the commons.
An interesting interview with Antonio Lafuente: