This is the third 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 Peter Taylor, Professorial Research Fellow in the Participation, Inclusion and Social Change Cluster at the Institute of Development Studies.
I’m writing this blog from a farm in Karnataka, India, in a rural context that would be extremely familiar to Robert Chambers. His name is known in very many places around the world as an author, researcher, facilitator, influencer and advocate for “good change”. India is a country where Robert has visited, worked, and influenced so many who are engaged in the challenging pursuit of development, and rural development in particular. I’m also in a place where I first had the opportunity, exactly 30 years ago, to put into practice some of what I was learning about participatory methods from the work of Robert and others who he had also inspired. But more on that later in this blog.
My introduction to Robert’s work
I first encountered Robert in 1991 at the University of Reading in the UK. I was studying for a Masters degree in Agricultural Education at what was then the Agricultural Extension and Rural Development Department (AERDD), having returned from four years working as an agriculture teacher in a rural secondary school in Botswana. At that point, I was motivated to return to study because I had gone through a significant “unlearning and learning” process during the previous years; I’ve shared some reflections on this in a recent EADI blog and podcast on decolonising knowledge for development. Memories of that time also appeared in my reflections on a foreword Robert wrote for a book of mine on participatory curriculum development in the brilliantly entitled “Reflecting Forewords” book, edited by Robert, and Tessa Lewin.
A disrupting workshop
Back in the UK in 1991, I felt fully ready to be exposed to new ideas and experiences, and to engage with others who were grappling with many different questions in their own lives and work. One day, early in the academic year, I saw an announcement that Robert Chambers would be running a workshop on participatory methods for all AERDD students. There was palpable excitement amongst the student body about this. I was fairly oblivious at that point as to who Robert was, because for one thing – being a school teacher – I had not perceived myself as working in the field of “development”. Also I had not yet encountered the body of work broadly known as participatory methods, or indeed met Robert himself. So I joined the long queue to sign up to the workshop and went along.
The workshop was a revelatory experience. It wasn’t just because I was infected immediately by Robert’s enormous enthusiasm, energy and humour (as he has often said himself, why do anything unless it’s “bloody good fun”?), but it was also because of what the experiences offered. Within one packed, physically, intellectually and emotionally disrupting day, I was exposed to an incredible array of participatory, inclusive and thought-provoking activities that were also practical and useful. The activities, the other participants, and of course Robert, also promoted deep reflection, and challenged so many of my assumptions I had held up to that point, many of which were rooted in my own identity and positionality. I doubt many of those who attended that workshop left feeling the same way that they had felt at the start of the day. I certainly didn’t. I’m sure this is true for the hundreds (thousands?) of others who have had a similar opportunity to participate in Robert’s workshops around the world, and of course at his long-term institutional “home”, IDS.
I immediately became a “fan” of Robert and his work, a form of appreciation which I soon became aware did not fit well with his typically modest, self-effacing manner. I didn’t get to know him well personally, and as a colleague and friend, until years later when I had the good fortune to join the Participation Team at IDS. After that first workshop, however, I felt sufficiently inspired by him to try to integrate into my own work some of what I had learned from him about participation and its huge family of related methods via his workshops, books and other materials developed by many contributors around the world. This manifested firstly through the development of an educational approach called “Participatory Curriculum Development”, and eventually led to the publication of the book which Robert very generously wrote the Foreword for.
From that point on, participatory methods, and approaches, began to infiltrate just about every area of my work. I was ripe for discovery of possible ways to respond to the many questions that had emerged through my time teaching in Botswana. As there was not much available about methods on the very creaky internet at that time, I often had to comb dusty shelves in resource centres for publications and reports with examples of methods that I could try for myself. As Robert advocated, the methods described there often required adaptation for the context in which they were used, in order to ensure they were oriented towards “learning with”, rather than “learning about” others. What became obvious, very quickly, was that these methods, used appropriately, thoughtfully and always with learning in mind, became not just useful but essential for my work.
Using participatory methods in Mysuru in the 90s
So, coming back to India. I came for the first time to Mysuru (formerly Mysore) in 1996 with my colleague Abigail Fairhall. We were carrying out a research study on “Contextualising teaching and learning in rural primary schools: using agricultural experience“, involving case studies in India, Sri Lanka, Tanzania and Ethiopia. We wanted to understand the role of agricultural experience as a vehicle for contextualising learning of the basic skills of literacy, numeracy, and other life skills in a context where the needs of learners are extremely diverse and whose life experience had been enriched by agricultural practice.
The connection with Robert is that participatory methods were central to our research approach. Working in partnership with education researchers from the immediate context, we engaged with policy actors, education officials, headteachers and teachers, parents, and importantly, with pupils. In the school environment, we used observation, semi-structured interviews and participatory activities, including order ranking, pair-wise matrix ranking and mapping; and Abigail and I later reflected on our experiences of using the methods in PLA notes.
Prevalent principles
The lessons we learned from these experiences of using participatory methods 30 years ago feel as relevant today as they did then. In a world increasingly polarised, divided, conflicted and exclusionary, the values and principles that Robert and his many collaborators have insisted upon – inclusion, trust, equity, power-awareness, collectivity, learning, reflection and yes, good change – are needed now more than ever. Many around the world are reflecting on our shared future, and whether current ways of thinking and practicing development are any longer fit for purpose.
Robert’s thinking and writing – often combining reflecting back and looking forward – continue to offer wisdom, clarity and provocations to question, and to think and do things differently. At a time of widespread uncertainty and growing complexity, his work inspires and informs others working to amplify the voices of those whose knowledge has often not been counted as it should.
This remains relevant to whatever development challenges are arising wherever they may be – revealing clearly the intersecting relationships between science and policy, knowledge and decision-making, and truth and trust. And these lessons are still being applied through new collaborations, whether they relate to Decolonising Knowledge for Development, Equity in Research for Development, or to Democratising Science, Technology and Innovation in Agrifood Systems (video below).
In closing, I’ll take the liberty to include some words that Melissa Leach and I wrote in a foreword to a Special Issue Archive Edition of the IDS Bulletin, “Power, Poverty, and Knowledge – Reflecting on 50 Years of Learning with Robert Chambers”, edited by IDS colleagues Stephen Thompson and Mariah Cannon. I think they sum up my thoughts about Robert and his work as I continue my own learning journey at IDS:
“Thank you Robert for an extraordinary legacy, and an ongoing set of ideas and commitments that are both personal and unique, yet also of such broad relevance. As we think forwards to recasting development, may the insights charted here and the spirit they embody continue to catalyse thinking, reflection, and learning amongst us all, into the future”.