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PRA Techniques

Techniques

1. Transect Walk2. Timeline3. Social Mapping4. Seasonal mapping5. Venn diagram6. Matrix ranking7. Pair wise ranking8. Well being ranking

Applied to all techniques

• Who can be the facilitator?

• Understand the basic issue in question thoroughly

• Conduct the PRA at the place where the target group lives and at a time convenient to them

• Explain the objective of the exercise to the participants

A good representative group of participants is a must to gather meaningful and unbiased data

Transect

• It is mostly used for the appraisal of natural resources in terms of status, problems and potential. It provides a cross-sectional representation of the different agro-ecological zones.

• This has also been used for the depiction of various social aspects, such as, the caste and ethnic determinants of a settlement.

• Verification of issues raised during other PRA exercises .• Serves as an important entry point for the PRA facilitators into the community in an

un-intrusive and non-threatening manner.

• Types of transect Paths– Walk from a high point across to a low point in the area– Just a straight line walk from one extreme point of the area to the other.– To get more detailed view of the area, an S-shaped transect walk is also undertaken

Key steps

• Locate a group of local people having some knowledge of the area and who are willing to walk with you for the exercise. Explain the purpose of the study.

• Go along with the people at the prefixed time on the already decided transect path.

• Observe the surroundings. If necessary, stop at certain locations for detailed discussions on the points emerging. It also gives you a breather and time to note down details.

• After returning, draw a transect on a large sheet of paper. Let the local people take the lead in drawing the transect diagram. Use your notes and the notes of other members of the transect team while making the diagram

• It is not uncommon to have two transects done for the same area- one by local men and another by local women. What is very striking s the different perspectives the two transect produce.

• The path, as far as possible, should remain the same for different transect walks. It helps in making the date more comparable. If you want the coverage to be detailed, you can select more than one path and have the same and different team do the transect walk.

Timeline

• It is used to explore the temporal dimension from a historical perspective. It captures the chronology of events as recalled by local people

• Time line provides an aggregate of the various landmark events as perceived by the local people.

• Helps to learn from the community what they consider to be important past events, the historical perspective on current issues and to generate discussions on changes with respect to issues you are interested in such as economic conditions

Key steps

• Identify some elderly persons in the village, explain the purpose of the exercise.

• The key questions:• When was the village established? What are the important events in the

history of the village? What major changes took place? What are the reasons for these changes?

• Make a note of the key points un brief in cards in bold letters. • Once you feel that the list is more or less complete, ask them to keep the

cards in a chronological order- the earlier events on the top and the later events lower down.

• Read out the events and ask them whether they are happy with the order.• Add years to the left side of the list of events. • Triangulate with other elderly persons in the village to see the correctness of

the information given in the time line. Secondary sources of information can also be used.

• Concept of time

Social mapping

• It seeks to explore the spatial dimensions of people’s realities.• Developing a comprehensive understanding of the physical and

social aspects of village life. Collecting demographic and other required information household wise

• Social mapping is different from other maps as it is not drawn by the experts but by local people, and it is not drawn to scale.

• It depicts what the local people believe to be relevant and important to them. It reflects their perceptions of the social dimensions of their reality with a high degree of authenticity.

• Serves as a guiding instrument during the process of planning interventions. Serves as monitoring and evaluating tool.

Explain the purpose of the exercise to the participants. Request them to start the process. Ask them to draw the physical features of their locality.

Leave it to them to use whatever materials they choose- local as well as other materials- the aim is to make it as creatively as possible

Watch the process carefully. Listen to the discussions carefully. While they are drawing, take notes in as much detail as possible.

Once the mapping is over, ask some villagers to identify their houses in the map. Number the households and ask the details for each household. Note it down. It will be useful for gathering data later

In case you need more details, you can list the households serially , and the names of their heads and other required details can be written on separate sheets of paper. The very participants who made the map can compile the information right at the site of mapping. Hence, we need not move from house to house to collect the details.

Cards are also used to collect details. To this end, have a card for each household. Write down the number of the household as also the name of the person heading it.

Wide range of materials and varying time period

You can use different types of seeds (poker coins) to learn about different household wise information, such as, members migrated to other cities. Ask them to put as many seeds in the figure of each house as would represent the number of members migrated to other cities for livelihood. Record the details on paper using symbols, designs, and color codes immediately. Other information that can be captured include provision of electricity, drinking water supply in households etc

Challenges

• Sometimes the non-literate participants are hesitant to start the mapping. Lack of confidence, fear of ridicule by others and the belief that maps can be made by the experts are some of the reasons. The use of expensive looking marker pens and paper turn out to be a barrier.

• Effective in small and medium sized localities having around 80-100 households. In bigger villages and slums, it has not been so easy. – Mapping at different location for various parts– Mapping by representatives of various parts

Seasonal mapping

• Seasonal mapping is used for temporal analysis across annual cycles, with months or seasons as the basic unit of analysis

• It depicts the perceptions of the local people regarding seasonal variations on a wide range of items.

• Seasonal diagram helps to identify heavy workload periods, periods of relative ease, credit crunch, disease, food availability, wage availability etc. Identifies periods of stress and to plan for when intervention is most required.

• Identifies and analyses the livelihood patterns across the year.

Start a discussion on the present season and the work they have been doing during the season. Draw a grid with the required number of columns. Ask them to identify a unique characteristic or symbol for each month.

Now on the vertical axis, take the aspects whose seasonal variations you are interested in exploring. E.g, availability of daily wage labor during various months.

An ExampleCategory

/Months

Crop Cultivation

(Paddy-only crop they practice)

Number of working days in

month

Wage Labour outside

the village (Iron rod)

Disease Festival Education

Female Male

April Weeding 15 - 20 Chicken pox

May Harvesting - - 20 Headache Temple Festival

June Free Land - - 20 Admission Fees

Upto Vth- 1500

Upto VII- 3000

July Ploughing - 15 20

August Sowing 20 20 20 Headache

September Transplantation 20 20 20 Headache

Category

/Months

Crop Cultivation

Number of working days in

month

Wage Labour

outside the village

(Iron rod)

Disease Festival Education

Female Male

October Weeding 15 - 20 Cold Diwali

5000 Rs.

November Use of Fertilizers/

Urea

- 15 20 Chikungunya, Fever

December Use of Pesticide - 15 20 Chikungunya, Fever

Shabrimala

25 Families

2000 per family

January Harvesting 15 15 20 Headache Pongal

150-1000 Rs.

February Ploughing - 15 20 Shivratri

200 Rs.

March Sowing 15 15 20 Chicken Pox

People’s concept of time

• People have their own systems and units of time. It is important for the facilitators to first understand the system of time of the local people.

– A few facilitators find it difficult to arrive at the local concept of time. Imposing your own time frames generally spoils the whole process.

• The key questions helpful in arriving at the patterns of local seasons and individual months can include:

– What month/ season is this?

– What are the other months/seasons?

– What is the sequence of the months/seasons?

– What are the major activities during the different months/seasons?

Dimensions

• If you are interested in running a credit programme with the community, you can look at the seasonal variations with respect to – Wage employment– Food availability– Expenditure– Credit requirement– Festivals and other social occasions requiring expenditure– Inputs for agriculture: sowing and harvest seasons

– Others

Venn Diagram

Venn diagram is useful to study and understand local people’s perceptions about local institutions, individuals, programmes etc.

Particularly useful to study and analyse:

• Various institutions and individuals and their influences on the local people

• Various groups and individuals in the locality and their influence.

• Relative importance and usefulness of services and programmes

Ask the participants to list the various institutions , which are assigned in different sizes of the circles.

Size of the circle is proportionate to perceived importance- i.e., big circle more important

Distance from the centre is proportionate to access, i.e., less distance means easier access

An Example

Matrix Ranking

• Useful to arrive at comparative understanding of various items of certain characteristics of a selected group.

• Helps develop an in-depth understanding of the decision making process of people.

Identify the topic on which you want to develop an in-depth understanding of the pattern of decision making on a number of different criteria. Identify the individuals with whom you would like to do the matrix. Initiate a discussion on the topic.

In this case, we tried to understand the credit savings matrix of 8 women

List down the various options. The next step is to arrive at the criteria. We can use pair-wise comparison of the options to arrive at the reasons for their preference.

Draw up a matrix with the objects (here women) across the top and the criteria down the side (here credit information)

This method helps both the participant and the facilitators understand the underlying financial behavior of the clients for the preferences as well as the decision making process

Pair-wise Ranking

• Helps analyse priorities and preferences of a group

• Helps in understanding people’s decision making processes

• Process:– Compares two items at a time and carries on until each item

has been compared with the other

– Final analysis is based in the frequency of times each of the items have been ‘preferred’ over the other

Understand the top 6-8 issues in hand and set up the matrix

Taking two issues at a time, ask the group to chose between the two options at each stage

In the total section, calculate the frequency of each item. This total helps identify

priorities

Well being ranking• Used for ranking and grouping households and communities on the basis of

income/livelihood, wealth and other perceivable well being criteria such as educational attainment, food security etc.

• It is based on the perception of the local people. It helps to understand the local people’s conceptions of wealth, well-being and their views on socio-economic disparities between households. Note: the ranking is relative and not absolute

• Helpful to explore issues like: livelihood, vulnerability, constraints to development as people perceive them, and to design intervention strategies in line with people’s aspirations.

• To study inter-household and inter-group socio-economic disparities and to understand how the local people view them.

• Well being ranking is generally done with key informants. The selection is made based on the basis of their knowledge about the different households.

Following from the Social mapping exercise, make a list of households. The names of the head of households are written on separate cards. A group of key informants with good knowledge of the village are then asked to rank the household.

Let the participants do the ranking on their own. Ask the participants to sort out the household cards into representatives categories of well- being. Ensure that the participants discuss among themselves and arrive at the well-being categories.

As the participants arrange the household cards, ask them why they have placed the cards in a particular order. This gives you the criteria participants are using to do the well being ranking

Card Sorting Method: If small villages with household ranging from 30-40, ask the participants to arrange the households in descending order of well-being, i.e., highest to lowest on well being

Note down the numbers and the names of the head of the households falling under each category of well being. Add the necessary basic details on each household card. Also prepare a category wise list of the households with details of the assets, income , occupation etc

The Statistical ModelGroup of Informants

Well-being Category

Household no falling in the category

Score

1 I (rich) 10,4,14,19,13,5,18 1/3=0.33

II 1,6,9,15,20,7,17 2/3=0.66

III 2,8,12,16,3,11 3/3=1

2 I(rich) 19,14,4,6 1/5= 0.20

II 10,5,18,13,1,15 2/5= 0.40

III 9,20,7,17 3/5= 0.60

IV 16,8,11 4/5= 0.80

V 2,12,3 5/5= 1

3 I 14,6,1,15,12 ¼= 0.25

II 4,9,13,5,18,10 2/4= 0.5

III 7,17,20,19 ¾= 0.75

IV 8,11,16,3,2 4/4=1

a table where the household numbers are put serially and then the scores each household gets from the three key informants is indicated. Calculate the average of the there scores and put it in the last column

Card (household no)

Group of Informants 1

Group of informants 2

Group of informants 3

Average Score

1 0.66 0.40 0.25 0.43

2 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00

3 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00

4 0.33 0.20 0.50 0.34

5 0.33 0.40 0.50 0.41

6 0.66 0.20 0.25 0.37

7 0.66 0.60 0.75 0.67

8 1.00 0.80 1.00 0.93

9 0.66 0.60 0.50 0.59

10 0.33 0.40 0.50 0.41

So on….. (The higher the average score, that poorer the household)

Challenges • As well-being ranking relies heavily on cards

marked with the names of HH, the non-literate don’t find the process very participatory. A common practice- one of the participants reads the names on the cards aloud. However, problem of sensitive nature of the information that is being handled and processed

• Well being ranking is based on the assumption that the key informants are knowledgeable about the relative well-being of all households in their locality. This assumption might prove to be incorrect in certain cases. In large localities, it is difficult to find participants who know about different groups. This holds true for urban and semi-urban areas.

• Wealth, income, assets etc are generally considered sensitive topics and are not discussed openly in many communities

• Expectations of the participants on the outcome