Combining rapid appraisal with quantitative methods : an example from Mauritania.

This article outlines the complementarity between the RRA techniques and the household survey adopted to study the exchange strategies used by villagers in the Assaba region of Mauritania. Giving specific examples, the article outlines how preliminary RRA work provided an understanding of indigenous terms, concepts and strategies which enabled a more meaningful survey to be drawn up. RRA techniques were discovered to provide information on typical behaviours of different sub-sections of the community whilst household surveys were able to give details on individual lives.