What is the ECSA2020 Safe Space Policy and why do we need it?
Claudia Göbel
Sept. 3, 2020, 1:03 p.m.
The Safe Space Policy for the ECSA2020 conference is a commitment by ECSA to take action against harassment during its 2020 international conference and all related activities, both online and offline. The policy states ECSA’s position - that harassment of any kind is not tolerated during the event - and lists behaviours that are considered as harassment. It also provides information on how to report harassment.
The policy aims to ensure that this conference is an enjoyable and productive event for all participants, where we can come together and express ourselves freely. We are all different and our differences are related to power - for instance the power we hold in our positions, which is distributed in uneven ways. This is why creating open, inclusive and safe spaces for exchange is dependent on some agreed basic practices. Awareness of the necessity of such practices is growing, which explains why the importance of codes of conducts and safe space policies is being acknowledged widely, for example in science, the museum sector, the tech industry, civil society and the United Nations.
For the ECSA community, this is especially important for two reasons. First, citizen science is an interdisciplinary and international field in which people from many different backgrounds interact without a well-established set of common principles. Citizen science also brings us together in new ways, creating links between holders of different types of expertise and skills.
At ECSA conferences especially, we often come together in less hierarchical and more informal ways than people usually experience at their workplace or in their home countries. While this is great in principle, it also entails new challenges. Hierarchies and dependencies still exist in this new joint space, and people do not come in with equal positions. This means they do not enjoy the same degree of freedom to express themselves, including the freedom to say “no” to unwanted behaviour.
Sadly, harassment happens all the time and, sadly, also in our midst. People have felt unsafe and harassment has happened at past ECSA conferences. But without an explicit organisational stance against harassment and no infrastructure in place, reporting and responding to incidents in adequate ways was not possible. This is not acceptable, and we need to change it.
Second, citizen science is on the rise, in Europe and internationally. This is a great chance for opening up how science is done - and doing it in a more equitable way. Considering the structural inequities and racism operating in (citizen) science worldwide, there is a lot of work to do if we are serious about wider participation and more democratisation of research - so the opportunities are vast. This work starts with how we build our associations.
This Safe Space Policy is far from perfect. Many aspects of what it is, and even more of what it is not, can and should be discussed. Let’s have these discussions: this is how we build our community. And let’s work with ECSA HQ to get the resources needed to address this major topic as a priority.
How this came about
The current version of the Safe Space Policy has been created as part of a series of measures for making the ECSA2020 conference more inclusive. Many people have contributed up to this point. This work was carried out on a voluntary basis by a subgroup of the Working Group on Empowerment, Inclusiveness and Equity in Citizen Science and Community-Based Research, jointly hosted by ECSA and the Living Knowledge Network. We were approached by the organisers of this year’s ECSA conference to work together on this and be part of the conference committee for this purpose. Members of the Safe Space Support Team will work together to implement the measures during the conference. The ECSA HQ team has been the supportive backbone of the initiative. Shannon Dosemagen and Jennifer Shirk have shared their experiences and provided valuable guidance.
This work builds concretely on codes of conduct, inclusiveness measures and resources from the Cos4Cloud project, CSA’s CoC and implementation measures, Gathering of Open Science Hardware CoC, International Marine Conservation Congress CoC, Public Lab’s CoC, Geek Feminism Wiki and the Ada Initiative. It has been inspired by many more organisations that have started to position themselves for inclusiveness and justice, and are undertaking measures to change organisational culture, such disciplinary collectives like BARC, Hackdays, scientific societies and technology-focused conferences and collectives.