Resources

Describes how storytelling was used during a PRA training course in Cameroon. The stories provided a useful entry point for discussion on issues such as nature conservation. The paper concludes that storytelling can be an appropriate way of initiating a dialogue with local people on potentially conflictual issues.

Perhaps the most fundamental challenge facing indigenous peoples in Central America is securing legal protection for their homelands, to preserve their way of life and the ecosystems that are essential to it. Two years ago Indian leaders and cultural activists in the north-east corner of Honduras decided to remedy the political invisibility of the Indians of the Mosquita region by carefully mapping where and how the different tribes lived. This article describes a project which helped the Indians create detailed records of their homelands to establish who inhabited the land and how it was being used. The project was also successfully replicated in the Darien region of Panama. Mapping indigenous homelands demonstrated that these lands are not uninhabited and degraded, and raised the regional awareness of the Indians, showing them the common ground they shared with other indigenous peoples and empowering them to pursue legal protection for their homelands.

This article addresses criticisms that PRA raises too many expectations, and that communities should not simply be used as guinea-pigs for testing methods. It argues that these criticisms are only valid when planning is inadequate and there is a lack of transparency in groups working with communities. Further, it argues that raising expectations is actually an objective of the PRA process.

The use and abuse of PRA has attracted considerable criticism from social anthropologists. This overview article discusses some of the wider concerns voiced about the practice of PRA by practitioners and academics working in development settings. The relative strengths and shortcomings of a PRA approach versus an anthropological approach are discussed. The article suggests that "anthropological concerns with reflexivity, social processes and context can help inform the practice of PRA and enable practitioners to appreciate the complex realities of the urban and rural poor. The challenges PRA raises for anthropology take critiques from within the discipline further, opening up new possibilities for development anthropology".

The paper discusses the use and usefulness of participatory approaches in the work of Save the Children Fund (SCF). It asks how PRA can be used effectively by SCF when the nature of its work means it is unlikely to be involved purely as a facilitator in a community development process. Areas where PRA has proved useful are research, training and awareness, and participatory monitoring and evaluation. It is suggested that the awareness and skills of a growing number of staff members will gradually increase SCFs capacity to use PRA. Participatory methods are also seen as having a useful role to play in turning SCF into a more child-focused agency, and in helping to develop partnerships between SCF, local communities and partner organisations.

The author spent a year amongst Bhutanese refugees in Nepal, using questionnaire surveys, PRA and anthropological participant observation methods in her research. The paper discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the different research methods, and explores questions of validity, appropriateness and complementarity. The experience demonstrated that PRA and anthropology can be of mutual benefit in enhancing a critical self-awareness and understanding of complex realities.

The article suggests that three processes - detailed field research, policy research and dissemination - need to run in parallel in order to make research relevant and accessible to policy-makers at different levels of decision-making. These processes are discussed in the context of an ActionAid research project on children's roles in development. Some of the problems with the approach and the lessons learned are discussed.