Relational responsibilities - Citizen science as intra-action in multispecies communities

This paper points to how community-driven science is able to challenge and renegotiate the current planetary situation. A primary aim of the paper is to investigate citizen science as a responsible form of science communication that is capable of mapping and understanding human-nature relations by re-enchanting science and by creating awareness of environmental concerns. Departing from recent studies in citizen science, this paper develops a posthuman theoretical framework inspired by design thinker Arturo Escobar and feminist scholar Karen Barad. Two examples are presented in the following on how relational and pluriversal knowledge practices between human citizens and more-than-human actors can activate critical voices and ethical relations in science communication. The paper concludes that another science communication is possible - a science communication taking environmental entanglements and more than human connectedness into consideration. While acknowledging citizens' affective and emotional entanglement with nature disturbs an anthropocentric understanding of science and agency, it also allows us to see science communication as a pluriversal and embodied knowledge that thrive in more-than-human communities.