Citizen Science and Participatory Engagement with a Contentious Past: The Historical Database of Suriname and the Caribbean

Citizen science is an increasingly widely used methodology for performing scientific research, in which scholars collaborate with members of the public that do not act out of a professional capacity. In the humanities, citizen science is often employed for labor intensive tasks, such as the transcription of historical sources. But citizen science entails more than the transactional creation of data: it can trigger a learning experience, build community and open up diverse and meaningful routes to involving the wider public. The case of the Historical Database of Suriname and the Caribbean demonstrates how citizen science offers multiple routes for meaningful engagement with a painful past of colonialism and slavery, while contributing to a collective redressing of the unequal availability of historical information.