Material Democracy and Biodiversity: Reimagining Publics, Expertise, and Participation

How do publics already engage with nature and biodiversity, and what does this mean for how we understand participation in research and conservation? Moving beyond traditional models that view public engagement as communication or consultation exercises, this lecture draws on Science and Technology Studies (STS) to explore participation as diverse, material, and already-existing in practice. Drawing on the Material Democracy project—a six-year research initiative funded by the Strategic Research Council of Finland—I examine how material participation challenges assumptions about who counts as an expert and what forms of knowledge matters in biodiversity. Through attention to the material practices, embodied engagements, and power relations that shape human-nature interactions, I argue for remaking participation in ways that open new possibilities for social innovation in conservation and environmental decision-making. The Material Democracy team is currently transposing a novel approach to mapping diverse public engagements with nature to the Finnish context. I present this research model developed by the University of East Anglia—partners in our network of advisors—for mapping public engagement, revealing an ecology of participation from citizen science and activist campaigns to community action groups and everyday engagement. This approach opens up new ways of understanding how publics, expertise, and nature are already configured and reconfigured in practice.