Shaping people-place bonds in citizen science: a framework for analysis

Hands-on, out-of-doors, environmental citizen and community science invites a wide range of publics to participate in data collection in the spaces and places local to them; that is, placed-based science. Understanding whether and how participants are attached to those places can inform all aspects of project/program design. Building on sense of place theory, we advance a multidimensional framework from which to conceptualize, evaluate, and describe people-place bonds in environmental citizen science, using survey responses from participants in the Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team (COASST). Results provide evidence that place attachment is strong, with aspects of place identity resonating much more strongly than place dependence. We explored six dimensions of place attachment relevant to COASST participants and found attachment to be asymmetrically multidimensional, dominated by nature-environment bonding, with secondary strengths in science community bonding, self-identity, and science affinity. The participant population displayed relatively low attachment strength along the friends and family axis, and no resonance within the dimension of social rootedness. We also found shifts in the multidimensional “shape” of attachment as a function of time in the program, with individuals persisting over 10 years stronger in almost all dimensions. These findings raise important questions for the field of participatory science about the significance of people-place bonds, how place attachment shifts over time, and the impacts of that attachment on citizen science outcomes around behavior, decision making, and policies connected to place.