“An Emotional Cycle”: Excitement, Worry, and Joy in a Citizen Science Biodiversity Project Using Bee Hotels

Abstract

This paper considers the affective and emotional aspects of citizen scientist engagement in a research project aiming to map solitary bee diversity across Johannesburg, South Africa. In social media engagement by people participating as citizen scientists, expressions of emotions were a key feature. To further understand the implications of emotions for the science and for the citizens, we undertook interviews with a sub-set of recruited participants. These are contextualized by a discussion of key literature on citizen science and human-insect relations. The findings presented show how excitement, worry and joy were expressed by participants at different stages of the citizen science project. We then theorize on the role of emotion in this specific citizen science project and argue that emotion should be considered at the design stage of other citizen science projects as it can play a key role in creating experiences that are rewarding for citizens, as well as producing useful data for scientists.