“How can you quality assure a citizen?” Expert rationalities, self-governance, and power in marine community science in the UK and Ireland

Community science can transform how marine governance operates by introducing new knowledge, mobilising resources, and fostering socio-technical innovation. Transformation has, however, been conceptualised in a limited way within the community science literature. Power issues within governance transformations have tended to be oversimplified, particularly concerning subtler forms of power that lie beyond the mere gatekeeping of participatory processes. Using a realist governmentality framework, this study critically assesses the power dynamics of government-funded marine community science initiatives in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Findings illustrate that a professionalisation governmentality creates conditions within which community science practitioners self-govern to reinforce existing marine management logics. In this governmentality, community science is narrowly framed as a means of generating additional data for current processes, foreclosing the possibility for transformative action. In this instance, community science’s utility is legitimised by the connection it provides between government and non-governmental organisations, rather than its capacity to produce new knowledge and actions. Whilst this connection facilitates a pathway for community science to inform policy, it also enables the government to police projects. Epistemologically unsuitable data standards and short-term funding time-frames, act as professionalising technologies that encourage community science actors to moderate their conduct to maintain their relationship with the government. To challenge this governmentality, community science must create the conditions necessary to instigate radical change in marine governance. This could be achieved by politicising community science and learning from the concept of community organising.