PLA Notes CD-ROM 1988-2001 1 Rapid assessment of artisanal systems : a case study of rural carpentry enterprises in Zimbabwe

Document begins: PLA Notes CD-ROM 1988­2001 1 Rapid assessment of artisanal systems : a case study of rural carpentry enterprises in Zimbabwe Godfrey Cromwell Introduction data collection in one non-agricultural sector of rural production; and, Although rapid and participatory information gathering techniques such as RRA and Farmer · encourage the development of survey Participatory Research often espouse `holistic' techniques that enable an understanding of or `systems' approaches, the actual terms of rural circumstances above and beyond the reference tend to be strongly biased towards agriculture alone. agricultural activities and to marginalise study of other rural income sources. To some extent I make no excuse for the lack of a this is a result of agriculture's domination of methodological acronym - Technical the labour calendars, physical environment Overview Using Rapid Information Search and income-generation of many rural Techniques (TOURIST), Consideration Of populations in developing countries. However, Farm Family External Earnings (COFFEE), it also reflects the professional biases of many Technological Ecosystem Analysis (TEA) or so-called `multidisciplinary' study teams. even Multidisciplinary Investigation of Local Failure to consider rural off-farm activitie s Kraftwerk (MILK) are all possibilities. Other adequately is not only to ignore their and better terms will no doubt be developed ...