Participatory
research methods, similar to those of the Gender Analysis Matrix (GAM),
outlined by Smyth (69-70) seem to be very popular in mainstream development
organizations and processes. Other participatory information gathering
activities for the purpose of gather information to base development projects
off of include problems and needs matrixes, community maps, seasonal calendars
and other activities. The idea of these activities seems to not only serve the
immediate means of gathering the specific information necessary to make a
community map or a seasonal calendar, but to allow for participants think
collectively as a group hoping that the knowledge they share with each other
could create a greater community consciousness and cohesion that may foster
greater community participation and leadership in development projects and
initiatives.
The
role in this type of activity for an outside agent (such as a member of a
development organization) is ideally to serve as little more than a facilitator
of dialogue and communication between community members by assuring a space for
dialogue to occur, asking questions that would lead to relevant conversation
and debate and assuring that various participants are able to speak and that
the meeting achieves most of its objectives according to the set time that they
have to work. Smyth (69) states that this role can be filled by development
practitioners who do not have any specific training in research in gender or
community issues but are just able to encourage conversation amongst community
members that reveal answers to the questions at hand and be able to assure that
the information is documented in a way that is useful to the community
participants and the development agents as well. This process appears make community
participants themselves in control of information and the development process
while development practitioners are merely facilitators of their own
development. Smyth states that some problems of this process are when gender
inequalities and other community inequalities are reflected in the activity,
but states that a good facilitator would try to assure that these marginalized
participants speak and express themselves during the course of the meeting.
While
working as a Peace Corps volunteer, all of the volunteers were encouraged to
implement Participatory Analyses for Community Action (PACA) tools in the
communities we worked in at the beginning of our service in order to have a
better understanding of the communities and to initiate or strengthen processes
of community organization and development. I was initially skeptical of these
tools, thinking of them as simply “fact-finding” activities to keep us busy and
assure we did something in our first couple of months. However, in one activity
I conducted a year into my service, a community mapping activity, I heard
someone, where, after seeing all the identified resources and enterprises that
they had labeled, stated that maybe they weren’t “as screwed” as he thought
they were. This showed to me the importance such activities can have as a
revelatory activity for community members as they see ideas, resources and
opinions of the community identified in a group setting. However, having been
part of such processes, and seen them performed by others, the idea of the
facilitator being little more that that seems quite theoretical for in fact the
“facilitators” often have a great impact on what is said, who speaks and what
information is deemed important to document. The stated or assumed promises of
action by a development organization following an activity like this could
cause community members to assure the development agents are told what they
want to hear. Also, the development agent as facilitator is often quite able to
silence the opinions of one person or group of people, over emphasize others
and ignore topics deemed important by the community through their questions and
time management. An interesting, and humorous, analysis of the apparent
oxymoron of development agents’ practices of “facipulation” can be read here: http://stuffexpataidworkerslike.com/2011/02/16/24-facipulation/
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