In Ibercivis we talk daily about collaborative platforms, citizen observatories, collective intelligence. But the idea that knowledge is built with the active participation of non-academic people scattered throughout the territory is not new in Spain. It is centuries old.
Long before the term “citizen science” was coined at the end of the 20th century, there were countless women and men in our country who collected data, mapped territories, recorded meteorological observations, classified plants or sustained entire scientific expeditions from a practical, local and committed knowledge. Without academic or nominal recognition in many cases. Without more infrastructure than their rigor, their network of contacts and their notebook in many others.
This series of publications is a journey through some of those antecedents. Not to rewrite history, but to place what we do today in a longer tradition: that of those who approached science and its construction as common goods.
We will cover eleven milestones, from the 16th century to the beginning of the 21st century:
- The Topographical Relations of Philip II (16th century), a work of territorial knowledge built with local contributions.
- Isabel Zendal (18th–19th century), a key nurse in the first global vaccination campaign.
- Pascual Madoz (19th century), coordinator of a vast work of territorial knowledge prepared with local contributions.
- Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola (19th century), a naturalist who defended the prehistoric origin of the paintings of Altamira against official rejection.
- Blanca Catalán de Ocón (19th century), naturalist, the first Spanish woman recognized by official botany.
- The Secondary Climatological Network (1911), the first great climatological network of volunteer observers in Spain.
- The Astronomical Society of Spain and America (1911), a community of observers for tracking celestial bodies and phenomena.
- The collaboration between the Spanish Institute of Oceanography and the fishermen’s guilds (20th century), exchange of data and mutual support between marine science and local knowledge.
- The Aranzadi Science Society (1947), an associative scientific community dedicated to the knowledge and protection of natural and cultural heritage.
- Francisco Bernis (20th century), zoologist, promoter of participatory ornithology, founder of the Spanish Ornithological Society.
- Javier Blasco Zumeta (20th–21st century), teacher, coordinator of an international network that identified thousands of species and revealed nearly 200 new ones.
Credits to AEMET for the image.
Launching of kites and observation balloons in the waters of Tenerife in 1905 from the “Princesse Alice”, the yacht of Prince Albert of Monaco, an enthusiastic patron of atmospheric research. The character is the German meteorologist Hugo Hergesell, a great promoter of aerological studies.
Each story responds to the same question about what this figure or this initiative teaches us as relevant examples of what we call citizen science today.