Participation
Relaxed and participatory appraisal: notes on practical approaches and methods for participants in PRA/PLA related familiarisation workshops
Behaviours and attitudes are more important than PRA methods
Authors:
R. Chambers
Publisher:
Participation Group, IDS, 2002
These notes are an updated foundation for workshop participants. They cover - what is PRA, the common elements of its approach, its origins and spread, concerns about its practice and the relationship between PRA and RRA. This is followed by details of how behaviour and attitudes are fundamental and more important than PRA methods. Some notes on ideas for approaches and methods are followed by notes on new frontiers.
The authors points out that many people make a distinction between RRA (‘Rapid’, or ‘Relaxed’, Rural Appraisal) and PRA (Participatory Rural Appraisal)/PLA (Participatory Learning and Action). RRA is more about data collecting, with the analysis done mainly by “us”. PRA/PLA, on the other hand, is an empowering process of appraisal, analysis and action by local people themselves. There are methods which are typically RRA (observation, semi-structured interviews, transects, etc.) and methods which are more common in PRA/PLA processes (participatory mapping, diagramming, using the ground in various ways, etc. Normally in small groups).
Among the qualities of good PRA practice, the author highlights:
- Critical self-awareness – building learning and improvement, and taking personal responsibility
- Changing behaviour and attitudes – from dominating to facilitating
- Culture of sharing – information, methods, resources, experiences
- Commitment to equity – empowering those who are marginalised, often women
While among the traps that lead to abuse and poor quality in so called ‘participatory’ approaches, the author emphasises the need to avoid:
- Rushing things
- Lecturing instead of listening
- Interrupting and over-interviewing people
- Imposing your own ideas, categories and values
- Gender biases
- People reluctant to spend time in the field or stay overnight in villages
- Consultants claiming expertise, but who do not give primacy to behaviour and attitudes
- Large-scale implementation of “PRA” in a blueprint mode, demanded by donors and governments, routinised, top-down, with no change in behaviour and attitudes.
Rapid and un-self-critical implementation more often than not leads to poor outcomes and only discredits PRA.
Some of the major changes in the PRA/PLA scenario in the last five years include the trend for donors mainstreaming of participatory approaches, with participation related language becoming obligatory donor-speak. As a result, PRA use is now probably ten-fold, and the issue is increasingly not whether it will be used at all, but rather how badly or well it should be implemented. Issues remaining critical include quality assurance with the rapid spread, ethics and attitudes, experiential learning to substitute conventional ‘training’, and institutional change against, for example, top-down drives to spend.
