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In an era where there is a crucial need to identify long-term solutions to sustainable development, global change, and challenges across the world, there is a strategic lead that science, technology, and innovation-focused organisations in Africa (including government, universities, and research and development departments of industries) can take to develop homegrown policies and initiatives to allow Africans themselves to provide solutions to their own particular needs and challenges. The communication of science using language constructs and systems that cut across the triple helix of academia, industry, and government is a fundamental component of that transformational and decolonised landscape for public engagement. However, there is an underlying pressure on researchers in Africa to communicate science in specific ways that align with the expectations and frameworks set by research funders and proponents of internationalisation in the Global North. This opens up a conversation that justifies the need for the decolonisation of the research and science communication agenda, especially if it must attend to local challenges and create developmental opportunities across the African region. Pressure to communicate science according to expectations and institutional priorities set by the Global North – which is often linked to research career promotion – restricts the use of science communication for local benefit. There is no arguing that there are huge gaps between scientific research and industry in many regions of the Global South, particularly in Africa. There is thus an urgent need to design policy tools, knowledge transfer programmes, and pathway-to-impact models that ensure a new era of impact-oriented and decolonised research and innovation in African countries and to communicate these innovations effectively for uptake without Eurocentric shackles. At the heart of this imperative is the need for capacity building, equitable strategic partnerships, and systemic re-orientation of science communication for societal transformation.

It has been over a decade since science centres raised concerns about the need to address the changes in the population demographics of the United States. These changes are also a growing reality in other regions of the Global North such that in the United Kingdom the 2021 Census data show that a number of major Cities are now ‘minority-majority’ populations – meaning there is no longer a White majority (UK-ONS, 2023). So-called ‘minorities’ in societies that are mainly White now represent large proportions of the population, accounting for nearly 20 per cent of the population of the United States, for example, and in many US states the percentage is even greater. In the State of California, for example, the Latin American diaspora represents nearly 40 per cent of the population (US Census Bureau, 2019). Science centres wish to remain relevant in their societies and to be considered the go-to places for informal science learning. With the growing shift in racial demographics in the Global North, these institutions are increasingly questioning their relevance and seeking to be more inclusive, aiming to engage diverse racial groups in a more effective way. Often their solution is to create and customise programmes and exhibits catering specifically to these groups. Even though this may seem like a great idea, in the long run, this has created silos instead of engendering a sense of community, a celebration of societal diversity, and an opportunity for diverse groups to learn from one another. In addition, a critical goal of inclusion in science centres and museums should be that of providing learning environments where all people, regardless of their situation or attributes, are welcomed and able to play, learn, and engage. It is time to adopt an inclusive approach in the design of informal science learning experiences, inside and beyond the walls of these science centres. We need to challenge ourselves and the field and think of ways to offer a science communication agenda for all. This chapter presents some good practice strategies and transformational case studies on how to break these silos and thus foster inclusive science learning and communication experiences across the race, gender, language, and socio-economic divides in societies in the Global North.

Globally, the past decade has seen the proliferation of the science communication agenda across a range of platforms. In the African continent, science communication has assumed an even more critical role, particularly when viewed against the backdrop of the structural and infrastructural deficiencies that continue to hamper science and development. Thus, without the advancement of the science communication agenda, attempts at addressing pressing developmental challenges while simultaneously moulding a scientifically literate African society are doomed to fail. In South Africa, the imperative for scientists to engage actively with the broader society emerged after the country became a democracy in 1994. These engagements continue to be shaped by the pernicious legacies of apartheid, related to sociocultural, racial, and gender inequalities. This chapter argues that gaps exist between the South African government’s well-developed policy positions and the practical implementation of its scientists’ imperative to deliver, through meaningfully resourced mechanisms, a viable, sustainable, and impactful science communication agenda. This in turn raises a critical question: where are the essential ‘foot soldiers’ and associated resources for the effective and sustainable delivery of science communication activities in the South African scenario? The challenge is daunting given the pressing need to equip and grow the critical mass of South African science communicators within holistic, sociocultural, and empowering ethical frameworks. This need arises in the context of a South African science landscape that remains dominated by Eurocentric hegemonic traditions. The chapter concludes by elaborating how the capacity-building, Afrocentric programme ‘Africa Scientifique: Leadership, Knowledge & Skills for Science Communication’, delivered annually since 2020 at AIMS South Africa and in partnership with African Gong, has demonstrated the potential to address the aforementioned gaps and challenges.

This chapter addresses the key challenges currently facing the practice of science communication in Mexico, situating them in three complementary dimensions: first, those of a historical order, the origins of which date back to the period of European colonialisation, which we analyse via the concept of ‘epistemic colonialism’,the origins of which date back to the period of European colonisation. The legacy of this epistemic colonialism is demonstrated in the prevalence of imported and institutionalised types of knowledge that systematically delegitimise forms of local knowledge, particularly those associated with Indigenous populations. The chapter introduces the concept of ‘coloniality’ and the ‘coloniality of knowledge’ to address the challenges along the proposeddimensions (Quijano, 1992, 2000a). The second dimension that frames the challenges of science communication in these contexts refers to structural factors, whereby institutional frameworks define valid, reproducible, and communicable knowledge that strengthens these exclusionary conditions and practices. This dislocation is translated, in the third dimension, into practices that focus on scientific knowledge as a deproblematised object of communication, creating what Miranda Fricker (2007) has called hermeneutical injustice, or a lack of access to interpretive resources on knowledge produced and established in foreign contexts. These practices systematically delegitimise and annul localised knowledge, which has other ways of thinking and other references, and thus constitute what Fricker calls testimonial injustice; in the extreme, such practices have even been referred to as a form of epistemic violence. The chapter outlines several recommendations to address these challenges in Mexico: first, radically re-positioning science communication by shifting the centre of its interests from the brokerage of scientific knowledge itself towards addressing complex social problems that demand collectively produced knowledge, dialogue, and political action from the social actors involved and directly affected by the problems in which they are immersed. Secondly, it recommends communication practices that question the deproblematised incorporation of scientific knowledge by fostering genuine dialogue among agents in order to understand and integrate their sociocultural contexts, perspectives, visions, and values.

The marginalisation experienced by racial/ethnic minorities during pandemics such as COVID-19 and SARS illustrates the importance of diversity and inclusion in science communication and public health. With the first cases of these pandemics reported in East Asia, epidemiologic and medical communication associating them with China led to racially motivated abuse and discrimination against individuals of Asian descent and appearance. Moreover, limited linguistically diverse and culturally sensitive health communication exacerbated infection rates, disease morbidity and mortality, and knowledge gaps already experienced by various culturally and linguistically diverse populations. This chapter explores scientific and medical communication during SARS in Canada and COVID-19 in Australia, two highly multicultural countries with significant Asian minority populations. It draws upon academic literature, media articles, and government reports to illustrate biases and gaps in scientific communication towards Asians and other minority ethnicities during these pandemics, and underscores how these have compounded the vulnerabilities they are already experiencing as a result of underlying health disparities and racist attitudes. It then advances the importance of communicating science to and with ethnic/racial minorities during pandemics to ensure effective and equitable outbreak control measures, discourage discrimination, and reduce mistrust in public health systems and interventions. Although communicating in multiple languages and accounting for diverse contexts and cultures are crucial, science communication during pandemics should go further and embrace a bidirectional approach wherein members of racial and ethnic minorities are empowered to co-create and lead communication efforts towards the communities of which they are part. Through democratising health communication and empowering underrepresented minority populations, we can start to address not just health disparities experienced by racial minorities but also issues of inclusivity, diversity, and representation in science communication.

The chapters in this book have shown that science communication and public engagement practices, initiatives and research, take place in highly different contexts, scenarios and settings around the globe. Yet, much of the discourse, practice and research in the field, is still predominantly predicated in the Global North. In order to overcome these ‘skewed’ realities, we need a broader framework for science communication that will transcend the Global North-South inequality divide, and thus, both explain the challenges and opportunities in different contexts, and proffer transformative solutions globally. This concluding chapter outlines the critical role that the decolonisation of science communication can play in bridging this Global North-South divide and spur mutual learning, ‘respectful listening’ and equitable collaborative engagements across this divide. It argues that the decolonisation framework should provide answers to profound questions, such as, how do we re-calibrate the discourses, exemplars, practices and narratives that infuse this globalised science communication arena, in order to engender a level playing field for science communication in the Global South? The chapter concludes with elaborating that science communication and public engagement discourses, paradigms and platforms that enable the field to have a ‘multi-lensed’ understanding of the operations of the craft, in the diverse contexts and scenarios across the globe, are important to building inclusive, engaged, open and dynamic societies. The way forward lies in science communication adopting a transformative ‘wide-angled’ lens in order to better reflect the diverse global populations, contexts and realities, in both the Global South and the Global North regions of the world.

Conversations around diversity, equity, and inclusion in science communication are in danger of generating much concern without effecting change and systematic transformation.

This radical volume addresses these circular discourses and reveals critical gaps in the literature, practices, capacity-building and scholarship within the science communication field regarding race and socio-cultural inclusion. Putting the spotlight on the marginalised voices of so-called ‘racialised minorities’ and practitioners from the Global South, it interrogates the global footprint of the science communication enterprise.

Moving beyond tokenistic and extractive approaches, the book creates a space for academics and practitioners to challenge issues around race and sociocultural inclusion, providing mutual learning, paradigm-shifting perspectives, and innovative ways forward for the science communication advancement agenda.

In addition, the book sets out to illuminate the multiple inequality dimensions which characterise the growing Global North-South divide in science communication policies, practices and research, providing exemplars of transformative actions needed to bridge this profound divide.

Finally, this unique volume elaborates on the shared responsibility of science communication stakeholders in both the Global North and South for the delivery of innovative ecosystems that advance sustainable race and sociocultural inclusion in science communication across the globe.

The Museum of Us (formerly the San Diego Museum of Man), located on the unceded ancestral homeland of the Kumeyaay Nation in San Diego’s Balboa Park, is ten years into its journey towards becoming a more decolonial organisation. What started as a theoretical effort to move the organisation towards decolonisation as an endpoint gradually transformed into a practical effort involving a constant process of implementing an ever-growing set of decolonising initiatives. This chapter, co-authored by Brandie Macdonald (Choctaw/Chickasaw), former Senior Director of Decolonising Initiatives, and Micah Parzen, Chief Executive Officer, at the Museum of Us, makes the case that, at its core, decolonising requires an unyielding commitment to continuous action in a forward-moving process of reckoning with the ever-present traumatic legacy of colonialism. Specifically, the chapter describes several decolonising initiatives in action, which go well beyond the museum’s cultural resources stewardship practices to include everything from its interpretive, programmatic, governance, branding/marketing, human resources, and even fundraising practices. Each decolonising initiative has brought new learning to the organisation, which seeks to engage in a constant process of doing better as it knows better. The authors hope that readers of this chapter will emerge with a renewed sense of how they may develop and implement decolonising initiatives within their own institutional contexts and unique colonial histories.

This chapter explores opportunities and challenges in science communication ecosystems in the Caribbean islands of Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao, Saba, Sint Maarten, and Sint Eustatius (the ABCSSS Islands), with a focus on nature conservation and mental health. Through a brief reflection on the geopolitical and historical context of the islands and its impact on science and science communication, it identifies the contemporary institutional frameworks and the colonial legacies that impact science communication in the islands. On these islands, science is often funded and guided by former colonial powers. These legacies shaped the exclusionary practices that have had a long-term impact on public engagement with science on the islands, in which ‘science is done to us instead of done with us’. This is directly related to who funds, designs, leads, executes, communicates, and benefits from scientific research and its results. Using case studies from nature conservation and mental health care communication, the chapter expands on the role local communities play in genuine engagement with research, results, and follow-up action. The in-depth analysis of the challenges in nature conservation and mental health care communication lays the groundwork for transformative practices for public engagement with science in the ABCSSS islands: (1) investing, supporting, and facilitating research and communication that is Caribbean-led; (2) recognising local knowledge and building long-term reciprocal collaborations; (3) reflecting on the dynamics of decision-making and implementing multivocality and co-creation in science communication; and (4) asking difficult questions and, in response, sometimes refusing research. These practices can transform research and communication practices and build a more embedded and community-based engagement with research in the ABCSSS islands. The chapter concludes with a reflection on the (im)possibilities of decolonising science communication and offers an alternative vision of community-based engagement with science in Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao, Saba, Sint Eustatius, and Sint Maarten.

Communication plays a critical role in the hegemonic gaze upon colonised cultures in museums. This chapter aims to present some of the Eurocentric narratives within science communication and cultural interpretation through the lens of normalcy and normative gaze. The chapter will highlight salient theories that explain this sense of normalcy that lulls science communicators into being comfortable with the absence of Indigenous epistemological content in displays or interpretations. This normalcy has been created in part by the cultural imperialism of colonisation. The constant application of latent dominance created a new normal that conveys the superiority of the coloniser. It also entails a sense of estrangement from such normalcy by the very groups that are excluded through its wholesale application – alienation in the cultural context such as isolation from any positive learning, not being a reference, and very often being the embodiment of everything that opposes normalcy. The colonised lack access to their heritage and receive the narrative of their own heritage from a coloniser’s point of view. The decolonial process of detaching science communication from dominant normativity has been made challenging by its very nature – normativity as established by cultural imperialism and defined as comfortable and unquestioned (Wekker, 2016). Often, it is accompanied by a feeling of innocence that eases detachment (Wekker, 2016). Racial grammar (Said, 1993) explains how the centrality of Western culture deeply structures science communication, which in turn organises and hierarchises knowledge to create an ‘epistemology of ignorance’ (Mills, 1997) that generates a supremacist narrative within science communication and cultural interpretation. The chapter concludes with the recommendation that museums, science centres, and science communicators in the West should display and acknowledge science from other civilisations and their corresponding epistemic traditions and worldviews without framing them from the dominant normalcy, as a crucial evolution towards decolonisation and transformation in these institutions and the field.