Redefining the boundaries of citizen social science to avoid a repackaging of common social science methods

Abstract

Citizen science (CS) means including volunteers alongside professional researchers in the research process. CS is predominantly and traditionally used in natural sciences, but also increasingly in social sciences. The understanding of traditional CS is oftentimes completely transferred to citizen social science, which we argue is inadequate. As social sciences study human interactions, they involve people in their data collection all the time. Commonly used social science methods therefore already cover one type of CS that is defined by including volunteers mainly in data collection: contributory CS. This overlap creates an urgent need for redefining the boundaries of citizen social science. We argue for only calling those projects citizen social science that go beyond contributory projects to avoid the mere repacking of commonly used social science methods.