Are we all social scientists now? The rise of citizen social science raises more questions about social science than it answers.

Citizen social science, whereby members of the public participate in the investigation and analysis of social phenomena, is becoming an increasingly common research method, especially to address localised social issues. In this post, Alexandra Albert¸ explores how citizen social science brings in to question familiar conceptions of social scientific expertise and the nature of day-to-day observation as a form of social science. Whilst citizen social science presents particular opportunities to change the kinds of data being collected for social research, she suggests the potential of citizen social science to realign the power dynamics and relationships between researcher and researched remains to be realised.