Project description
Digital crowdsourcing platforms for climate justice
Global climate change debates and decision-making processes often fail to avoid local and global structural inequalities in experiencing and addressing climate change. Theoretically, crowdsourcing via digital platforms could empower individuals through more participatory processes. Consequently, several international NGOsl and governmental organisations introduced digital crowdsourcing campaigns to engage citizens at global levels. The EU-funded DIGI-EMP project will investigate whether individuals affected by climate change experience a sense of empowerment through such platforms. The project will conduct qualitative research under the climate justice perspective through short-term ethnographic fieldwork with the WWF and UNFCCC, long-term digital observation in crowdsourcing initiatives undertaken by these organisations, and focus groups with the platform users.
Objective
This project aims to explore whether and (if so) how individuals affected by climate change experience and perceive empowerment through digital crowdsourcing campaigns provided by organisational actors. Unequal inclusion in climate change debates and decision-making processes remains a significanThis project aims to explore whether and (if so) how individuals affected by climate change experience and perceive empowerment through digital crowdsourcing campaigns provided by organisational actors. Unequal inclusion in climate change debates and decision-making processes remains a significant global problem, perpetuating local and global structural inequalities in experiencing and addressing climate change . In response to this issue, various international non-governmental civil society (INGO) and governmental organisations (IGO) have initiated crowdsourcing campaigns to involve citizens around the globe. Such campaigns provide open calls through digital platforms with varying aims around participation, ranging from individual submissions of climate change data (e.g. photo evidence or disaster tracking) to group submissions of innovative solutions to specific environmental problems. As such, these campaigns aim to provide more participatory processes. They should therefore, in theory, empower individuals through more participatory digitally-enabled processes (= digital empowerment), a notion and hypothesis this project aims to test through the lens of climate justice. It will do so through qualitative research including short-term ethnographic fieldwork with the WWF & UNFCCC; long-term digital observation (and where possible participation, e.g. in group tasks or data submission) in crowdsourcing initiatives by the UNFCCC (= 3 initiatives, drawn from COP27 crowdsourcing actions as part of the Action Hubs) and WWF (= 3 initiatives, “Climate Crowd”; “One City Planet Challenge”); and six to ten focus groups (FG; 1-2 FG in each chosen location) with users of these platforms.
Fields of science
Keywords
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)Coordinator
38122 Trento
Italy