Resources

This book describes a grassroots approach to empowering people for democratic social change. It explains participatory research using exemplarly case studies on community organizing, femist theory and ecological movements from a range of locations in North America. It challenges the relevance and validity of academic social science research.

This article explores constraints encountered when using PRA on an ODA-funded natural resources project in a tribal area of Western India. It was particularly evident that women's participation in the PRAs was minimal. The reasons for this were practical (women were not available collectively for long periods of time & there were few women fieldworkers as the project had just begun), social (PRA activities tended to take place in public places where women felt awkward) and methodological (women respond to PRA activities in different ways, sometimes feeling bored and "communicating by singing instead"). The author argues that an organised PRA "gives privilege to certain kinds of knowledge and representation and suppresses others" : the emphasis given to formal knowledge and activities tends to "reinforce the invisibility of women's roles". However, once the formal and public nature of PRA is perceived as a problem, it can become a means by which "women's knowledge and activities.. can be transferred from the informal to the formal arena of project planning", thereby increasing women's profile. Suggestions for encouraging women's participation in PRA include: making non-public contexts (since women are more used to the "private sphere"), using women's knowledge and ways of communicating (songs, sayings, proverbs). There are constraints: the "production of observable outputs (maps, diagrams of PRA) have more status for fieldworkers" than scribbled songs or informal interview notes and women's expressed needs (eg a flour mill) "don't fit easily into established categories of natural resource development".

This article focuses on gender aspects of participatory projects. It draws on the author's own research as well as secondary sources and states that gender inequalities in resources, time, and power, influence the priorities and framework of participatory projects as much as "top-down" development and market activities. Increasing the numbers of women involved in participatory projects cannot, therefore, be seen as a soft alternative to specific attention to change in gender inequality. Meeting the demands of poor women in the South will require not only local participatory projects, but a linking with wider movements for change in the national and international development agenda.

This book intends to provide participatory development tools that will enable those traditionally excluded - particularly women - from decision-making processes and control over resources to have a voice and to play an active role. The authors contend that the tools described increase the capacities of local communities, NGOs and public sector agencies by integrating applied and analytical methods. To illustrate, examples from field experience in urban, rural and agrarian communities from around the world are described. A brief overview of participatory approaches to development is described, including issues such as power relationships within a community and between local institutions and outsiders. Its explores the opportunities for using multi-media tools to strengthen the impact of other tools in conscious-raising, data-gathering, advocacy, and community decision-making and action.

Rather than challenging the universal validity of PRA, this discussion paper focuses on the practical task of "doing PRAs" in a new and alien context. The authors advocate the acknowledgement and acceptance of local cultural trends, power relations and structures of authority when undertaking participatory research. This will allow to work with, rather than around these factors. Hence, the proposed "Vietnamisation" of PRA so as to allow local voices to shape the values and techniques of PRA itself. But, just how Vietnamised can PRA become until it comes into conflict with international liberal PRA values? This broad discussion originated in a workshop organised in Hanoi on Community Research Methods in February and March 1996. The issues covered by the paper include: introducing PRA and PRA values in Vietnamese communities, gender, local leadership and dominance; and international donors and PRA. Methodological issues covered are: sampling, recording of research information, interviews, focus group discussions and mapping.

Brief note on results of internal evaluation regarding the use of PRA by The Community Action Programme in Uganda. In the programme trained community facilitators used PRA techniques with partner communities to develop micro-projects. The report outlines some of the short-comings of the facilitation process based on the results of a survey of a random sample of the partner communities. The survey examined, attendance by men and women of PRA sessions, PRA tools remembered by participants and aspects learnt, the relationship between men and women's main problems and the final choice of micro-project and their level of agreement with it.