公民為何（不）科學：新竹我們要喝 乾淨水行動聯盟的運動軌跡(2017-2020)

Why Are Citizens (Not) Doing Science: The Movement Trajectory of “Taiwan Clean Water Action Union” in Hsinchu, 2017-2020

2017 年起，一群新竹公民在瞭解自來水取水口上游的污染源狀況後，對既有水源管理可能造成的健康風險感到憂慮，進而組成「我們要喝乾淨水行動聯盟」展開一場爭取「喝好水」的社會運動。本文探討了造成此一爭議的制度脈絡，及管制科學與公民科學在爭議中扮演的角色。希望改變水源管理方式的社會運動行動者，在體制內外遭遇多重的結構壓力。這些壓力形塑出對科學論述所需的科學信譽與數據基礎更為敏感的運動主體，也造成社會運動行動者不提出「病因敘事」的策略選擇，以及將議題純化為「公共資源支出」問題的運動傾向。看似以專家與常民風險論述衝突為主軸的頭前溪流域自來水水質爭議，其實隱含著不同行動者試圖解決水源管理所造成的社會衝突時，不同的行動邏輯。藉此案例，本文重新探討了「公民為何科學，又為何不？」此一問題。

In 2017, citizens in Hsinchu city were worried about the potential health risks posed by sources of pollution in the protected Touqian River watershed area that had been allowed under the prevailing municipal watershed management policy. They established the “Taiwan Clean Water Action Union” to fight for safe drinking water. This article is based on research of the institutional context of this citizens’ movement and what it tells us about the role of regulatory science and citizen science. In challenging the watershed management policy, the activists faced multiple structural forces that underscored their lack of scientific credibility and problems with the quality of their citizen science data. I analyze the absence of “etiological narratives” in the movement and why the activists tried to reframe the issue as a public expenditure management problem. On the surface, the tensions over drinking water quality in the Touqian River watershed point to differences in the risk claims asserted by laypeople and experts. However, another key dimension is how the movement actors came to define the issue differently once they began to engage more deeply with the social struggle over water quality protection. This study attempts to explain why the citizens were and, at the same time, were not doing science.