IDS Researcher Robert Chambers books (authored or co-authored) have been made open access for all to read for free.
We are thrilled to announce that the IDS Participation, Inclusion and Social Change (PISC) cluster, in collaboration with Practical Action Publishing, and a generous group of crowdsource funders have recently made his back catalogue of books open access. 25 per cent was raised through a fundraising campaign and the rest were funded from PISC cluster funds.
The books include:
- To the Hands of the Poor: Water and Trees (1989)
Robert Chambers, N. Saxena and Tushaar Shah - Challenging the Professions: Frontiers for Rural Development (1993)
Robert Chambers - Whose Reality Counts? Putting the First Last (1997)
Robert Chambers - Provocations for Development (2012)
Robert Chambers - Into the Unknown: Explorations in Development Practice (2014)
Robert Chambers - Reflecting Forewords (2024)
Robert Chambers and Tessa Lewin
Access for free from Practical Action publishing
Joydeep Sinha Country Director, BRAC Tanzania and IDS alum Class of 2019 says: “Robert Chambers’ teachings reshaped how I view development—centering communities as active participants with wisdom and agency. Making his books open access will inspire countless others to embrace participation, humility, and people-driven change.” –
About Robert
Robert Chambers is a pioneering author whose work has reshaped development theory and practice. His work continues to inspire and provoke debate and discussion about participation, poverty, and knowledge among development practitioners, activists, and academics from around the world.
About the PISC cluster
The Participation, Inclusion and Social Change (PISC) research cluster is an evolution of the team that Robert set up when he first came to IDS in 1972. It remains a space for pushing the thinking and practice of participation in development, and it carries Robert’s legacy, in particular through the Participatory Methods website, which houses the digitized content from the Participation Resource Centre that Robert curated over many years.
Read more on our work on Participation
Our website
In the spirit of Reflecting Forewords (2024), and building and expanding on both this book, and Robert’s work, we will be featuring Robert’s ideas here on the Participatory Methods website and inviting colleagues from across IDS to write short blogs to reflect on the ongoing or new relevance of core ideas in Roberts’ work.
Related blog
Hope lives on by reconfiguring relationships through participation. This is the first of a series of blogs hosted here that builds on, and extends, Reflecting Forewords (2024), a collection of forewords written by Robert from 1986 to 2020, each of which is paired with one or more pieces that offer contemporary riffs or contemplations on his ideas. Here, in the spirit of Reflecting Forewords we use Robert’s work as a springboard for our own reflections on strategy and practice.
This blog is authored by Marina Apgar, Research Fellow and Cluster Leader for the Participation, Inclusion and Social Change Cluster at the Institute of Development Studies.