The Importance of Participatory Development Research for the inclusion, capacitation and the mobilisation of Affected Communities

Activist Fieldwork Research for democratic development is ethnographic, involving qualitative interactive forms of engagement, as well as quantitative research to both encourage the engagement of communities in public participation processes. The research engagement process is also structured to reflect on how the intertwining of political and economic processes unfold over time for both communities, capital and government. The activist component involves an iterative process of both documenting and capacitating communities to unpack the question of “who benefits” from development policy promises. In so doing, forfronting indigenous (lay) knowledge is critical. While communities may be excluded or marginalized through lack of technical knowledge on a particular development project, this should not undermine or occlude different, equally important knowledge of the environment and livelihoods challenges which have bearing. Chambers, on Participatory development methodology also explains the variable use of research instruments that vary according to contexts and the complexity of development projects. 

As discussed in a recent opinion piece in the Mail and Guardian, public participation in development is often reduced to a largely bureaucratic exercise where communities are nominally included if at all. Participatory Development encourages a focus on a more equalized engagement between “uppers” (those with economic power and government) and “lowers’ (the subaltern, indigenous communities whose livelihoods may hang in the balance of development decisions. Robert Chambers, who brought the concept and methodological framing of participatory development to fame, also coined the phrase of development in relation to the borader framing of governance in the Global South in themes of “whose reality count’s”, and putting ‘the last first’.

Some basic methods of engagement for information sharing and gathering developmental fieldwork related data are:

1. Focus groups (ideally not larger than 10-20 participants to allow optimal engagement)
2. Community meetings (ideally not larger than 50 participants but depending on the size of the community and the anticipated outcome these can be larger).
3. Key stakeholder interviews. These would typically target those in positions of governance broadly defined. These may involve more than one official or leader.
4. One on one (face to face) interviews with key informants/stakeholders
5. Information sharing meetings with up to 10 participants. These would be more educational in nature but should be structured so there is a “two way street” of information.
6. Short survey interview questionnaires.
7. In coalition/campaign building participatory research, different repertoires may be employed, including social audits, marches, various uses of public media including press statements, open letters to officials/government; and also more targeted interventions, for example, specific engagement on Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs), usually done in cooperation with Environmental NGOs with legal training.

Methods of Engagement need to be matched to Mapping the Research Terrain:

Mapping involves delineating the layout of the community outreach process to:

1. The size of the case study area
2. Accessibility to leaders/stakeholders/communities
3. Familiarity of researchers and activists to communities
4. Levels of trust in terms of information sharing
5. Gender configurations and norms of communication
6. Community and stakeholder power relations
7. Time constraints
8. Ease of communication (need for translation for example)
9. Key anticipated outputs
10. Anticipated outcomes
11. Available finances for research/activism and meetings.

Ethnographic research is usually an iterative process, meaning methods of information sharing and awareness raising are kept adaptable, flexible and open ended.

Activist Researchers also require training into how to manage focus group meetings to achieve outputs and outcomes; how to change strategies; how to manage dissonance and conflict in meetings; how to adapt, and how to reflect on changes in method.

Research Tools

These include:

1. Open ended interviews typically with a few initial key questions but relatively unstructured- the community leads. Usually to gain information on community perceptions on a given political and/or socio-economic area of the research
2. Structured meetings with very defined agendas and questions
3. Key informant interviews which target attaining or sharing key information to the project
4. Meetings which centre around the sharing of information
5. Meetings orientated towards campaign building
6. Structured interviews with a research instrument (quantitatively based questionnaire for gathering aggregate data with a greater capacity to generalize.

In planning participatory development research, it is crucial to plan how to match methods to mapping and to detail how these can be best matched to research tools. This gives researchers a sense of confidence in how to match objectives to outputs and outcomes and a feeling of ease in dealing with research fieldwork situations that do not go according to plan.

Skills Training for Participatory Development Researchers

Researchers also require training on how to avoid objectifying community perceptions, of the potential power relation issues that come with ethnographic research, to be aware of gendered power relations. In terms of research engagement this means carefully working to open participatory spaces for women to speak without causing community friction (this in particular a concern in very traditional communities).

In particular, Researchers need to be very aware of leading questions, speaking for or on behalf of others, and of setting agendas for campaigns that do not match community needs.

Lisa Thompson, together with activist researcher colleagues, offer training and consultancy advice on successful participatory development techniques to enhance community empowerment so as to assist with ensuring the legitimacy of public participation processes. Contact: lisa.lit@iafrica.com.