Process, Perception and Power: Notes from ‘Participatory’ Research in a Zimbabwean Resettlement Area

Abstract

The increased popularity of`participatory' methods in research, development projects, and rural extension in developing countries, has not consistently been accompanied by a critical evaluation of the quality and reliability of knowledge created and extracted in the process. In this article, the author employs her own research using Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) in a Zimbabwean Resettlement Area, to examine how knowledge is created through this type of research act, and how later research may be used to turn back and make sense' of PRA data. The article explores how power relations among participants are both revealed and concealed in PRA, focusing speci®cally on the implications for gendered perspectives. The paper also highlights the dynamic, contested and often contradictory nature of`local knowledge' itself. Apparently transparent chunks of`local reality' gleaned through PRA can turn out to be part of complex webs of multiple ideologies and practices. The author argues that while participatory methodologies may oer eective ways of beginning a research project, adoption of short PRA workshops in academic or project related research could lead to dangerously faulty representations of complex social worlds.

Towards participatory environmental management?

“…On the one hand, these writers warn that 'community institutions' may militate against, rather than encourage, women's participation (Braidotti, 1994;Goebel, 1998;Gt{it and Shah, 1998;Norton, 1998 (White, 1996), that is, when gender relations result in women bearing the brunt of 'community participation'. In HamiltonWentworth, for example, many of those involved in the unpaid, volunteer community initiatives are women.…”

Between supply and demand: the limits to participatory development in South Africa

“…However at the turn of the twenty-first century, a wave of revisionist writers severely criticized the concept on the grounds that it reduced the complex processes involved in poverty alleviation to a series of participatory methods and techniques which, once mastered, would facilitate efficient and sustainable patterns of development (Cooke and Kothari, 2001;Goebbel, 1998). They also argued that the proponents of participatory government naively under-estimated the impacts of local power relations and the fact that the poorest of the poor were seldom the primary beneficiaries of participatory programmes which were frequently subject to capture by local elites (Platteau and Abraham, 2002).…”

Rural young people's opportunities for employment and entrepreneurship in globalised southern Africa: the limitations of targeting policies

“…However, it has been underscored in livelihoods studies that it is important not to neglect consideration of various types of local stratifications when analysing livelihoods (de Haan and Zoomers, 2005;Platteau, 2004). Goebel (1998) notes that while she focused on investigating gender relations using participatory methods in rural Zimbabwe, this focus led to the neglect of other important power relations, such as clan, wealth, relationship to the ruling party and witchcraft. In relation to our study's focus on young people, age in rural southern Africa is perhaps the most important type of stratification of all.…”