Participatory Appraisal

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Participatory Appraisal

• Researching for Social Change
• MA in Activism and Social Change
• Paul Chatterton (Leeds University)

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1. What is it?

• Part of body of community research work linking
• Participatory appraisal methods
• Action research
• Participatory/popular education
• Structured process of learning with communities
  about their lives/conditions
• Hears and elicits views of local people
• Informs policy

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1. What is it?

• Participatory appraisal is a community-based
  approach to consultation that gives precedence to
  the views and attitudes of local people as
  experts within their own communities.
• Through PA, local people can explore and share
  their knowledge of life and local conditions as
  well make decisions, and plan and carry out
  actions to effect change within their
  communities.

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2. Approach

• Involves education, research and action
• Valuing local knowledge and respecting local
  perceptions
• Verifying each stage using variety of methods
  triangulation
• Full involvement of local people
• Emphasis on visual material rather than just
  written
• Emphasis on feedback
• Information in research process is
  publicly/locally owned
• Help overcome barriers between professionals
  and locals
• Participation is voluntary and in community
  settings
• Empowers local people to control the process and
  set agenda

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3. Where does it get used?

• Lots of areas including
• Community development
• Community health
• Urban environmental improvements
• Rural development
• Can collect data on a range of topics
• Physical (pollution etc)
• Demographic, health, social
• Cultural
• Spatial and temporal distributions

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4. Values

• Behaviour and attitude are key! Make a list

• Respect
• Watch and listen
• Self critical
• Supportive
• Sharing
• Participatory
• Flexible
• Adaptable
• Exploratory
• Enjoyable
• Iterative
• Inventive
• Empowering
• Collaborative
• Transparent
• Neutral/objective

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5. Dangers

• Rushing
• Forced or one-off
• Jumping on the bandwagon
• Rhetorical not substantive
• Inadequate training
• Use of methods only and not values/approach
• Institutional claims to ownership
• Reinforcing local power structures
• Having a hidden agenda

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7. Scales of participation
Co-option Tokenism, manipulation
Co-operation Incentives or tasks given
Consultation External analysis of local opinion
Collaboration Local discussion, external responsibility
Co-learning Sharing knowledge
Collective action Locally determined process

• The ladder of participation (Hart)

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8. THE PROJECT CYCLE
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9. Tools

• Semi structured interviews
• Community walkabouts and fieldwork
• Spidergrams (showing cause, effects etc)
• Timelines or daily activity lines
• Graffiti walls
• Pie charts (showing proportions between different
  activities/choices)
• Mapping (places, bodies, cities, countries -
  social, historic, land use, resources)
• Venn diagrams (to show groups, institutions and
  overlaps)
• Evaluation wheel
• Pair wise ranking Matrix (making a choice
  between options)
• Criteria ranking Matrix (using dots to rank
  features of options)
• Impact ranking Matrix (focuses on impacts V
  ease)

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Remember

• Plan well
• Group size (individual or groups)
• Sequencing of activities
• Triangulation of results