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This article briefly points to those situations in which the use of RRA might be more appropriate than PRA.

'Voices of the Poor' is a series of three books that collates the experiences, views and aspirations of over 60,000 poor women and men. This second book of the series draws material from a 23-country comparative study, which used open-ended participatory methods, bringing together the voices and realities of 20,000 poor women, men, youth and children. Despite very different political, social and economic contexts, there are striking similarities in poor people's experiences. The common underlying theme is one of powerlessness, which consists of multiple and interlocking dimensions of illbeing or poverty. The book starts by describing the origins of the study, the methodology and some of the challenges faced. This is followed by an exploration of the multidimensional nature of wellbeing and illbeing. Most of the book comprises the core findings - the 10 dimensions of powerlessness and illbeing that emerge from the study - and is organised around these themes. These include livelihoods and assets; the places where poor people live and work; the body and related to this, accessing health services; gender roles and gender relations within the household; social exclusion; insecurity and related fears and anxieties; the behaviour and character of institutions; and poor people's ratings of the most important institutions in their lives. These dimensions are brought together into a many-stranded web of powerlessness, which is compounded by the lack of capability, including lack of information, education, skills and confidence. The final chapter is a call to action and dwells on the challenge of change.

Contributing the special 50th edition of PLA notes, the author argues that continuum thinking may not be useful for promoting development under conditions of violent conflict or civil war. Continuum thinking is defined as viewing relief, rehabilitation and development as distinct sequential processes in a time-frame model that is, a linear process moving from one stage to the next. The author criticises this approach for 4 main reasons: social conflicts and civil warfare are often circular processes, meaning that periods of relative calmness are often interrupted by violence; it is virtually impossible to distinguish between a pure emergency situation and a development situation; rehabilitation and reconstruction approaches tend to focus on re-establishing a status quo that in fact held the seeds of the conflict; efforts need to find an approach that prevents a reappearance of such destructive patterns and find a new way forward; and emergencies (and aid distribution) do not take place within a social and political vacuum. The article then looks at examples of participatory development in Sri Lanka, during times of war, as an example. The case study looks at how the Integrated Food Security Programme Trincomalee (IFSP) lobbied for a development-oriented participatory approach in Sri Lanka. In conclusion, the author argues that the experiences of IFSP show that participatory development requires a process of continuous negation with local implementing partners, and that only if aid agencies use this kind of process can their work contribute to the social and economic recovery of a war-ridden society.