Principles
Robert Chambers, whom Fisher considered a leading icon of the movement, defines PRA according to the following principles;
- Handing over the stick (or pen or chalk)
- Facilitating investigation, analysis, presentation and learning by local people themselves, so they generate and own the outcomes and also learn.
- Self-critical awareness
- Facilitators continuously and critically examine their own behavior.
- Personal responsibility
- Taking responsibility for what is done, rather than, for instance, relying on the authority of manuals or on rigid rules.
- Sharing
- Involves the wide range of techniques now available, from chatting across the fence to photocopies and e-mail.
PRA and PLA methods and approaches include:
- Do-it-yourself: local people as experts and teachers, and outsiders as novices
- Local analysis of secondary sources
- Mapping and modeling
- Time lines and trend and change analysis
- Seasonal calendars
- Daily time-use analysis
- Institutional diagramming
- Matrix scoring and ranking
- Shared presentations and analysis, and
- Participatory planning, budgeting, implementation and monitoring.
Read more about this topic: Participatory Planning
Famous quotes containing the word principles:
“Government ... thought [it] could transform the country through massive national programs, but often the programs did not work. Too often they only made things worse. In our rush to accomplish great deeds quickly, we trampled on sound principles of restraint and endangered the rights of individuals.”
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)
“The same principles which at first view lead to skepticism, pursued to a certain point, bring men back to common sense.”
—George Berkeley (1685–1753)
“Ah, I fancy it is just the same with most of what you call your “emancipation.” You have read yourself into a number of new ideas and opinions. You have got a sort of smattering of recent discoveries in various fields—discoveries that seem to overthrow certain principles which have hitherto been held impregnable and unassailable. But all this has only been a matter of intellect, Miss West—superficial acquisition. It has not passed into your blood.”
—Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906)