Methodological issues regarding participation
It is by no means self-evident that local economic promotion, and especially the formulation of a local economic development strategy, is a participatory exercise. Quite often it is delegated to external actors, especially consultancy firms specialized in this field: External consultants parachute in, conduct a series of interviews, collect a lot of data, and present their results to an audience of surprised and impressed local agents. What happens afterwards, and in fact whether anything happens, is unpredictable.
In order to initiate a process which can be sustained by local actors it is crucial to involve them from the start. It is essential to find an adequate balance between inputs from outside and local activity. External inputs are important, in terms of bringing in both methodologies and concepts of development, especially in places where local actors have little to no experience with economic promotion. However, it must complement and stimulate local activities rather than substitute them. In practical terms, this means that it is desirable that at least one important local person, e.g. the executive secretary of the ACI, takes part in the whole field research and elaboration of the diagnostic.
Any participatory appraisal, planning, or evaluation should build on some principles which have been formulated in the participatory rural appraisal work (quoted from The PRA Pages):
offsetting biases (spatial, project, person - gender, elite etc, seasonal, professional, courtesy...)
rapid progressive learning – flexible, exploratory, interactive, inventive
reversals – learning from, with and by local people, eliciting and using their criteria and categories, and finding, understanding and appreciating their knowledge
optimal ignorance, and appropriate imprecision – not finding out more than is needed, not measuring more accurately than needed, and not trying to measure what does not need to be measured. We are trained to make absolute measurements, but often trends, scores or ranking are all that are required
triangulation – using different methods, sources and disciplines, and a range of informants in a range of places, and cross-checking to get closer to the truth through successive approximations
principal investigators' direct contact, face to face, in the field
- seeking diversity and differences
There is no reason why this kind of approach should be limited to rural environments. On the contrary, our experience so far shows that such a perspective renders a very valuable diagnosis of urban economic structures as well, specifically if it is combined with analytical concepts to understand the key determinants of successful development.
At the same time, it is important to acknowledge the pitfalls and limits of PRA/PLA approaches. First, there are the risks of inadequate application of the methodology:
failing to put behavior and attitudes before methods
rushing and dominating
pretending to be experienced trainers when not
rigid, routinized applications
taking local people's time without recompense, raising expectations
demanding instant PRA on a large scale
cosmetic labeling without substance
Second, there are some difficulties with participatory methodologies as such. Summarizing the literature on participatory monitoring and evaluation, which is a closely related approach, Estrella and Gaventa (1998) point at three issues: power, conflict, and methodological rigor. PRA sometimes is being presented as an instrument that overcomes issues of power and conflict. This is an idealistic view. The likelihood that a PRA exercise is biased by existing power structures, or that local actors try to move it around an existing conflict, is always there. It is specifically the insistence on participation which is creating risks in this respect – how would a PRA practitioner who is truly dedicated to participation justify that he is tackling the consistent evasiveness of local people when it comes to addressing certain touchy, conflict-prone issues? Likewise, methodological rigor can suffer if local actors feel consistently awkward in applying certain techniques, so that a trade-off between participativeness and rigor emerges.
last chapter: where and for what purpose can PACA be applied?
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