Smitten by Giraffe: My Life as a Citizen Scientist is a memoir by Anne Innis Dagg. In the text, she describes her pursuits as a citizen scientist, ranging from her first encounter with giraffe (the plural of giraffe used in Smitten By Giraffe is “giraffe”) as a child, through her studies at the University of Toronto in the 1950s, to her more recent projects. Dagg calls herself a citizen scientist, but like many other citizen scientists, she has in fact worn many hats in her long and exciting career: zoologist, assistant professor, author of non-fiction books on a variety of topics both scientific and otherwise, social activist, and more.
Dagg’s own personal path to citizen science is characterized by negotiations between the citizen and the larger institutional and commercial practices of the scientific community. She writes that “For most of my adult life I have been a citizen scientist…Citizen scientists address incredible varied topics, which are often researched using methods that might seem odd or too labour intensive” (x).
