PLA Notes CD-ROM 1988-2001 8 Order from chaos? Making local data relevant for policy audiences

Document begins: PLA Notes CD-ROM 1988­2001 8 Order from chaos? Making local data relevant for policy audiences S. Rengasamy, P. Bala Murugan, John Devavaram and Simon Croxton Introduction role. Such a process works well only for those groups whose perspectives are incorporated in One of the greatest challenges facing anyone the discussion - frequently the most politically powerful. Using participatory methods for attempting to use information gained from investigation allows marginalised perspectives large numbers of people is narrowing down a to be heard in the policy-making process, dauntingly broad amount of data. Participatory methods are frequently extremely good at particularly when investigation is linked to helping us gather huge amounts of information opportunities for dialogue between these but are often less helpful with the question of different interest groups - which was an how to deal with this jumble. The task can integral part of our research process. appear both difficult and confusing. This Collecting this information was itself a time- article relates some methods that we used to consuming and exhausting task. Yet it was try and deal with just this problem in India. only the beginning of the process of analysis. Our challenge In the data collection processes, ...