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Filter by keyword: Social inclusion

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103 publications found

Aug 21, 2023 Essay
Response to: “Looking back to launch forward: a self-reflexive approach to decolonising science education and communication in Africa”. Decoloniality opens up new epistemic vistas for science communication

by Sujatha Raman

Decolonial perspectives open up epistemic and practical insights for science communication. Following critiques of a deficit-model framing of the field, science communication has been redefined as an inclusive cultural space of meaning-making around science. From a decolonial lens, however, a cultural perspective necessitates a fundamental reckoning with the historical and contemporary politics of knowledge claims, including the erasure and devaluation of entire knowledge-systems in the process of Westernization. In recognizing and learning from these histories, science communication can learn from parallel developments within the sciences. It can also learn from contributions made by decolonial scholars to the global challenge of navigating sustainable futures. This piece briefly discusses one such example, drawing from scholarship on the ontological cosmovision of Ubuntu and its relevance to climate change dilemmas today.

Volume 22 • Issue 04 • 2023

Aug 21, 2023 Essay
Response to: “Looking back to launch forward: a self-reflexive approach to decolonising science education and communication in Africa”. Recognizing and validating multiple knowledge ecologies

by Fabien Medvecky, Jennifer Metcalfe and Michelle Riedlinger

This is a response to Sesan and Ibiyemi's essay [2023], which rightly urges “scholars and science communicators” to resist the colonial legacy of science in African countries. The essay argues that northern paradigms, focused on science as the only true form of knowledge, need to be replaced with functional Indigenous knowledge systems. However, the authors adopt the framework of the global north when reimagining and advocating for a radical ‘power literate’ agenda thus confounding knowledge with science, and education with science communication. These approaches obscure the fundamental importance of reimagining power dynamics in a world of multiple epistemologies. Instead, we propose that ‘knowledge communicators’ facilitate a multi-knowledge world through participatory processes.

Volume 22 • Issue 04 • 2023

Jul 03, 2023 Conference Review
Fail better

by Sarah Rachael Davies

This short text discusses PCST2023, held in Rotterdam in April 2023, and reflects on the event's connections with science communication research and practice as a whole.

Volume 22 • Issue 04 • 2023

Jun 20, 2023 Article
Living labs contributions to smart cities from a quadruple-helix perspective

by Daniel Esashika, Gilmar Masiero and Yohann Mauger

This paper explores living labs' contributions to smart cities from a quadruple-helix perspective. The selected exploratory case studies (Living Lab Florianópolis, Living Lab of the Itaipu Technological Park and Porto Digital) depict an institutional context characterized by a low interaction between the quadruple-helix components. The data were obtained through document analysis and interviews with living lab organizers and participants. The results suggest living labs can contribute by a) selecting the most promising projects to promote, b) connecting several agents and sharing informational through collaborative practices and events, c) facilitating mediation between participants in living labs and government agencies, universities and local companies to conduct tests, and d) inserting the fourth helix as a tester but not as a co-creator. These findings explain the participation of quadruple-helix components in the stages of project selection, development, and testing developing living labs. Finally, this article contradicts the predominant notion that living labs remain based on user-oriented innovation processes, purporting a producer-oriented trajectory.

Volume 22 • Issue 03 • 2023 • Special Issue: Living labs under construction: paradigms, practices, and perspectives of public science communication and participatory science

Jun 20, 2023 Essay
Imagineering the city: the living lab mystique and its discontents

by Dara Ivanova and Sabrina Huizenga

In this essay, we posit that the urban living lab is an object, engulfed in a particular kind of ontological mystique. We show how diverse urban initiatives utilize the label of `lab' strategically, in order to position their practices within the logic of scientific authority and in/exclude different audiences, thus configuring urban participation. The essay links this lab mystique to urban participation by employing the lens of imagineering [van den Berg, 2015], combining imagining and engineering the city in particular participatory configurations. This allows for critical examinations of who is allowed to imagine, experiment and participate in the city through living lab initiatives.

Volume 22 • Issue 03 • 2023 • Special Issue: Living labs under construction: paradigms, practices, and perspectives of public science communication and participatory science

Jun 20, 2023 Practice Insight
Living labs as third places: low-threshold participation, empowering hospitality, and the social infrastructuring of continuous presence

by Christian Pentzold, Ingmar Rothe and Andreas Bischof

In this practice insight contribution, we reflect on our learnings from configuring and upholding a living lab as a third place in an urban and distinctively non-academic environment. Trying to make space for an empowering hospitality necessitated withholding our schemes and workshop plans so to facilitate grassroots endeavors on the side of the people dropping in and staying around though they might follow unexpected paths. This follows no blueprint but requires researchers and science communicators to be open to surprises, to be patient and persistent, and to be willing to swap positions and be the learners, not the instructors. While the physical and technical infrastructures were at one point installed, keeping the social infrastructuring of continuous presence running remains an open issue that requires us to rethink how to fund and support living labs and their mission in the long run.

Volume 22 • Issue 03 • 2023 • Special Issue: Living labs under construction: paradigms, practices, and perspectives of public science communication and participatory science

May 15, 2023 Article
Diversifying citizen science through the inclusion of young people

by Natasha Louise Constant and Joelene Hughes

The study presents findings on motivations, barriers and recommendations that enhance youth engagement in citizen science particularly, those with no prior citizen science experience. We conducted focus groups targeting young people with and without citizen science experience. Qualitative findings identify a range of motivations including career development, new interests and knowledge, altruistic values, social interactions, inclusivity and connections to new places and nature. Several barriers were identified including logistical constraints, lack of knowledge and interest, programmatic and organisational issues. We discuss the implications of our findings to broaden the diversity of citizen scientists toward a younger demographic.

Volume 22 • Issue 02 • 2023

Nov 07, 2022 Commentary
Exploring the politics of science communication research: looking at science communication from a social justice perspective

by Emily Dawson, Stephen Hughes, Simon J. Lock and Michel Wahome

What can we say about equity, diversity and inclusion in science communication research over the past 20 years? This is a thorny question because of course we want to be constructive, to recognise change and to respect those whose hard-won research on equity issues has meant so much to many of us. At the same time, it is impossible — given what we know through our research — not to take a critical stance. We critique the status quo of science communication research from a social justice perspective and reflect on how we might change, perhaps bringing what has been marginal (and indeed the marginalised) into the core of science communication research, practice and policy.

Volume 21 • Issue 07 • 2022

Nov 07, 2022 Commentary
Twenty years of science communication: looking back, looking forward

by Michelle Riedlinger and Marina Joubert

Our 20th anniversary this year is a special milestone for JCOM. It is a time to reflect on our past performance and future prospects. We pause to consider the activities of this journal, and the broad field of science communication over the past 20 years.

What is ‘‘science communication’’?
by Bruce Lewenstein
Have we ever been satisfied with Science Communication? Continuity and change
by Massimiano Bucchi
Advancing inclusion through culturally relevant science communication: a perspective from Puerto Rico
by Monica Feliu-Mojer
Citizen science communication and engagement: a growing concern for researchers and practitioners
by Susanne Hecker
Exploring the politics of science communication research: looking at science communication from a social justice perspective
by Emily Dawson, Stephen Hughes, Simon J. Lock and Michel Wahome
Twenty years of teaching science communication — a personal reflection
by Nancy Longnecker
Science communication: a messy conundrum of practice, research and theory
by Jenni Metcalfe
Research in science communication in Latin America: mind the gap
by Luisa Massarani and Thaiane de Oliveira

Volume 21 • Issue 07 • 2022

Oct 10, 2022 Conference Review
“Be the change” — how Cheltenham Science Festival used a central theme to centre social change within the festival

by Gary Kerr, Emma Whittle and Marieke Navin

“Be the change” (BTC) was the theme for Cheltenham Science Festival. BTC set out to empower audiences as individuals and as a collective to enact positive change across a wide range of global issues linked to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. We examine the role of theming within festivals and analyse how BTC centred social change within the science festival. We conclude by noting that science festivals do not have to have science, technology, engineering or maths (STEM) themes, but can instead be themed around global social issues.

Volume 21 • Issue 06 • 2022