Participatory Rural Appraisal: Lessons for Countries in the North?

This paper describes and analyses various perspectives on participatory rural appraisal and the relationship between its rhetoric and practice, particularly regarding its claims to give voice to the marginalised and contribution to development needs. Drawing on relevant literature that both critiques and provides examples of practice, the paper analyses two case studies to explore what lessons we can learn about the approach and its applicability as a methodology for marginalised social groups in European contexts. Key words: Participatory, appraisal, research, methodology, ethics 1. Introduction Participatory rural appraisal (PRA) . is a holistic, all encompassing data collection exercise about a whole community. The research process is put as far as possible into the hands of ordinary people. Although 'experts' (the community educators) are involved, their role is to facilitate, not take over, the investigation. It has very practical goals. The aim of the inquiry is to obtain a detailed understanding and analysis of a specific local context; then for local people to prioritise their needs based on this enhanced understanding. The outcome of this process is a community action plan, devised with a view to helping local communities solve their own problems through different local initiatives. The PRA embraces diversity. It can be applied in a range of adult education contexts, such as health, agriculture, biodiversity and urban planning. It is used to address specific African problems such as desertification, low food production, declining productivity and fuelwood shortage. PRA, then, is: 'built on the premise that participation by the beneficiaries in any project is fundamental' and that 'locally developed technologies are more likely to succeed' in building community confidence and capacity (Egerton University 2000, 4). Its strategy is to encourage the use of local cultural values, organisations and knowledge systems for solving problems. The community is involved in every stage of the PRA process (Chilisa/Preece 2005: 198). PRA emanated from countries in the global South1 as a strategy to involve poor rural communities in their own development. Drawing on relevant literature this paper will explore to what extent PRA lives up to its rhetoric, and how effectively it contributes to sustainable outcomes. The paper will also explore what lessons we can learn about PRA and its applicability as a methodology for marginalised social groups in European contexts. We begin with a brief introduction to the evolution of PRA as a participatory methodology. 2. Evolution of participatory methodologies Traditional research approaches are often criticised for failing to address issues of ownership and control or power relations between the 'expert academic' and practitioner or layperson involved in the study (Green et al. 1995). Countries from the so called developing world have particularly voiced their concerns about the way powerful outsiders investigate local communities with only partial knowledge of local contexts (Mulenga 1999). The concept of participatory research, as an antidote to these criticisms, has evolved from a number of directions. On the one hand development agencies and policymakers who sought quick access to socio economic data were responding to critiques of trickle down economic development theory and concerns about top-down development without consultation with local communities (Boyde 2000; Campbell 2002; Hayward et al. 2004); on the other hand communities themselves have increased their demands to be included in decisions that affected their daily lives (Hayward et al. 2004). Furthermore, in the past decade there has been increasing emphasis on the need to respect multiple voices and a reluctance among researchers to speak for the 'other' in contexts where there were significant power differentials between the researcher and the researched (Cottrell and Parpart 2006). …