PLA Notes CD-ROM 1988-2001 1 Context and complexity: anthropological reflections on PRA

Document begins: PLA Notes CD-ROM 1988­2001 1 Context and complexity: anthropological reflections on PRA Andrea Cornwall and Sue Fleming Introduction anthropologist mused, "I suppose PRA is what we do anyway. The use and abuse of RRA and PRA has attracted considerable criticism from social It's just quicker". Many of the methods used in anthropologists. This section addresses some PRA are not new and anthropologists have of the wider concerns that have been voiced long used similar techniques (Richards, about the practice of PRA, by practitioners and Scoones, this issue). But their use with and by local people to facilitate their own analyses, by academics working in development generate their own solutions and plan for settings. The critical reflections offered by themselves offers a significantly different contributors to this section highlight issues of social and cultural complexity, difference and approach to their use by anthropologists. power, raising important challenges for practice1. Conventionally, the observations, analyses and conclusions of the anthropologist form the substance and outcome of anthropological Questions of practice research. Anthropologists make fieldnotes and take them away to analyse. They may use Is PRA a genuine alternative to the use of some of the methods now familiar in PRA, `expert' ...