Methods for Participatory Development and Communications

Global Research Division workshop

Using visual methods to enable participatory action-research: women and Zero-Budget Natural Farming in Andhra Pradesh, India – Henny Osbahr and Grady Walker

We use participatory photography when reporting on Zero-Budget Natural Farming approaches in Andhra Pradesh, India. Reporting of sustainable agricultural innovation practice has not always created space for marginalised voices. Participatory action-research merges theory with action and participation, while challenging institutionalised academic methods of collecting and curating knowledge. It relies on the accumulation of knowledge through participant action and seeks to advance the interests of underrepresented groups and classes, including in policy debate. In this short presentation, we will highlight how the approach was used to facilitate a channel for self-help groups of women to explain their often subjective reasons for adopting innovative rural practice.

Understanding how participatory scenario planning can support learning for social-ecological resilience  – Sam Poskitt

Participatory scenario planning (PSP) is widely used for public engagement and co-production by researchers and practitioners with the expectation that this can encourage learning that supports progress towards social-ecological resilience. However, thus far there is limited theoretically informed analysis regarding how PSP may support learning in this context. In this presentation, I will explain how I developed a conceptual framework to help understand how PSP can support learning and then applied this framework to an empirical study of learning in PSP processes that focuses on social-ecological resilience.

One step backwards, one step sideways: notes at the margins of a participatory ethno-fiction – Lorenzo D’Angelo

This presentation aims to discuss the choices behind the making of a film shot in collaboration with people living in a gold-mining area in South-Western Uganda. Among other features, this is a locality in which Ugandan security services keep an active eye on gold mining sites and on a researcher eager to film. Hence, the presentation will reflect on issues such as: What is the relationship between reality, fiction, and storytelling? To what extent can collaborative ethnography be participatory?

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