Pathways to participation:reflections on PRA

ParticipationÆ may have become the buzzword of the 1990s, but the pathways of current enthusiasm for participatory methods stretch back over decades. The most popularly recognized and widely used participatory approach, Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) had its genesis in the late 1980s. Since then, it has come to be used in countless communities, in dozens of countries and in a huge variety of contexts. Once a marginal practice, it has now become an instrument used by the most powerful of global development institutions. This book offers a perspective on PRA. In it, thirty-two practitioners from twenty countries reflect critically on what PRA has come to mean to them, and draw on the wealth of their experiences as NGO workers, donors, activists and trainers to explore some of the lessons the past might offer future participatory practice. Embracing a range of entry points and experiences, past and future, challenges and opportunities, the stories include moments of frustration and revelation, of dilemmas and discoveries; together, their accounts speak of and about the variety of practices that have come to be called æPRAÆ.