As I am part of the group working on the Librizol Fire in Rouen, France, I find it very interesting to see and compare how social and cultural structures shape people's actions and options. e.g.: (Non-)knowledge and power hierachies, as well as infrastructures like universities, and environmental organizations; official/governmental actions (top-down) and citizen-le actions (bottom-up), and blurred lines and spaces inbetween.
"Rather than making a contribution to scientific research, these citizen organizations require actionable data (Morita et al. 2013, Morris-Suzuki, 2014) by exploiting technology and science to understand the impact of technology gone awry, as illustrated by this tagline of a Tokyo-based radiation monitoring group: “To measure, to know, to live” (Hakaru, shiru, kurasu; Brochure published by citizen radiation measuring lab based in Tokyo).
The data being collected, then, are issue-driven (Marres, 2005) and serve a public goal, namely that of the community the organization identifies with" (p. 5)
The article is great at highlighting the multple efforts and projects lurking behind the label "citizen science" in Japan. Paying attention to the various terms and histories, especially their implications for citizenship and activism are really important. I guess the focus on language, reports and self-definitons of different actvists left me wanting to hear more about what all the different practices look and feel like. I assume this gets more attention in the ethnographic write-ups of the project.