P R A Module
PRA (Participatory Rural Appraisal)
Why PRA
To understand village environment on the basis of
farmers? criteria.
To know about and learn from farmers? indigenous
To interact with farmers and gain their confidence
and credibility.
To collect data with minimum costs.
To cut down on normal ?Professional biases?
To collect data from more sources by more than one
methods for crosschecking (triangulation)
Before PRA
Meet people with open and frank mind.
Greet them when you meet them.
Tell them who you are and why you have come here.
Build up personal rapport with the villagers.
Identify villagers who are willing to share their experience.
Show full interest and enthusiasm.
Always begin interview by relaxing.
* Select suitable place for interview.
During PRA
Listen carefully, Show empathy, Be patient, Do not lecuter
Intense and careful observation.
Try to understand villagers? ways of reasoning.
Do not interrupt, suggest or prescribe.
Be polite, gentle and accommodative.
Be flexible and innovative.
After PRA
Do not forget to thank people after interview.
Record all information gathered.
Mapping
Social Mapping
Resource Mapping
Social Mapping
This is the construction of a map of the
village living areas using rangoli powders or
chalk on the ground or a cement floor.
Through this exercise an understanding of
the village layout, showing the main
features such as housing, temples, stores,
and other infrastructure can be obtained.
Resource Mapping
This method is used to locate the resources of an
area such as village, forest, watershed, etc. This
helps us to establish the extent and locations of these
resources, and analyse and understand them better.
WHY ?PRA? ?
In its earlier version of PRA it emerged as a
response to two major concerns of rural social
research not adequately satisfied by
conventional methods.
To develop local perspective by becoming
more responsive to local people and local
situations
To evolve a methodology which could
provide timely and cost effective
information
However, from RRA to PRA represents a
change in attitudes, objectives and outcomes.
PRINCIPLES OF PRA
The right attitude:
Openness
Humility
Curiosity
Sensitivity
Acceptance
The right behaviours
Showing respect
Being, friendly
Sharing
Being patient
Interacting, not lecturing
PRA Tools
Semistructured interviewing
Focused group discussions
Mapping and modeling
Seasonal and historical diagramming.
Process in the field
Selection of suitable spot
Briefing respondents on nature of exercise; general
interaction to put informants at ease.
Reading out each name card about and handing them out
one by one to respondents, who will place them in separate
piles based on whether they are considered to be well-off,
medium, 50-50, poor, very poor
Re-reading the names from each side to check if there are
any second thoughts requiring some house holds to be
Finally, asking the respondents what criteria they used to
make the classifications. This is generally done at the end
of the exercise and not at the beginning.
Note: Since this information is somewhat sensitive,
presentation to the full village may not always be advisable.
Wealth Ranking
The purpose of this exercise is to ascertain the
relative economic status of all families in a village
according to criteria established by the people
Are observatory walks through the village living
area or the area surrounding the village such as
fields, hillocks, forests, grazing lands, etc. This
exercise is done with farmers as guides.
How to do a Transect
1. Find local people who are knowledgeable and able
and willing to walk and help.
2. Discuss with them aspects to be noted (Soils, Trees,
Topography, Streams, Water sources, Crops, Animals,
Grazing land, etc) and approximate route (Participatory
mapping can help).
3. Assign tasks in the team (who among you records what
while villagers do the talking)
4. Walk the transect (can be in straight line, a zigzag, up
and down, etc).
5. Observe, ask, listen, do not lecture
7. Note contrasts and changes, identify zones
8. Make a transect diagram.
Matrix ranking
The exercise is done when it is required to
compare and study the merits and demerits of a
variety of items such as different types of crops
or varieties of crops, animal breeds, trees, etc.
Do initial ground of discussions for rapport building
Include people from different age groups and classes
Decide what you want to be ranked or scored (crops,
animals, breeds fodder trees etc)
Find one or more key informants who are knowledgeable
and willing to discuss
Prepare a matrix with different items represented in
rows and the criteria in columns (or vice versa). Mind you
criteria are indicated by the farmers (not your criteria
please)
Ask informants to rank or score each item (5=best;
4=next best etc)
For scoring they may use pebbles or seeds.
How to Document
Entire process to be recorded
Transfer the actual outputs to a paper, without
making changes
A narration to explain the out put.
A record of the interpretation analysis.
A record of possible actions, if any.
Seasonality Analysis
This is an important and useful exercise to determine
seasonal patterns in rural areas of any given activity or
phenomenon (credit, rainfall, availability of labour,
agriculture operations, etc.). The spread of activities
across calendar period is elicited from villagers and
marked on the ground. But the main catch is how do the
villagers mark their calendars. They normally use local
calendar months like Sravan, Bhadrapad, Asweej, etc.
Also they often use Nakshatras like Ashwini, Bharani etc
and local festivals mark time when they recall events in
retrospect. So it is essential that field staff get familiar
with farmers calendar. The local calendar is thus elicited
and represented on the ground and this calendar is used
to record the occurrence of the activity, phenomenon.
How to do Participatory Seasonal Analysis
1. Decide who you think will share their knowledge
(women, men, children, landless, etc.)
2. Find one or several such people able and willing to
3. Find a suitable place (enough space etc)
Ask when their year starts, names of divisions (months,
nakshatras, seasons) and choose which to use.
5. Mark the units on the ground. Ask participants to show
duration for important aspects such as
* Income
* Expenditure
* Animal feed availability
* Labour days
* Animal breeding
* Festivals
* Milk production
* Sheep/goat production
* Animal diseases
* Human diseases (sicknesses)
Don?ts
Don't impose your calendar
Don't combine too many issues/factors in one
exercise
Don't combine unrelated factors in one exercise
Seasonality diagrams
An extremely important and useful exercise, which is
used to determine seasonal patterns in rural areas as,
related to rainfall, farming practices, employment and
In seasonality, an attempt is made to determine the
seasonal calendar as understood and practiced by the
villagers. This is either in terms of festival such as
Ugadi, Deepavali, Sankrantri, etc. or as calendar
months in local use. This is then adjusted to the
English calendar. Use of different lengths of sticks or
numbers of stones or seeds to quantify items such as
rainfall, employment, etc can facilitate the process.
