MIXING SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE AND CITIZENS' EXPERIENCE: PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT IN BIODIVERSITY

How is scientific knowledge and experience of laypeople mixed when citizens participate in public engagement events? Drawing on an STS approach to 'scientific citizenship' and 'socially robust knowledge', and an approach to 'deliberative democracy', this paper presents an analysis of how scientific knowledge was presented and used by citizens participating in a global hearing on biodiversity in 2012. The analysis shows that the presented scientific knowledge, together with the themes of discussion, framed the deliberation among the citizens in a way that made it difficult for them to enact scientific citizenship. However, due to a shared belief that citizens arc responsible for their actions, the citizens managed to add their own perspective, based on their experience and values, to the scientific knowledge and in this way they contributed to the process of creating socially robust knowledge.