TY - GEN AU - Chambers, Robert TI - Whose reality counts? : putting the first last SN - 9781853393860 U1 - 338.90072 PY - 2014/// CY - Rugby PB - Practical action publishing KW - N1 - CONTENTS List of Figures ix List of Tables x Abbreviations and Addresses xi Glossary of Meanings xiv Preface xvii Acknowledgements xix 1. The Challenge to Change An overview 1 Accelerating change 3 Polarization: overclass and underclass 5 An evolving consensus 9 The power and will to act 12 The challenge to change 14 2.Normal Error Errors: embedded or embraced? 15 Macro-policy 16 Integrated Rural Development Projects 17 Beliefs about food and famine 17 Post-harvest losses of grain 19 Animal-drawn wheeled toolcarriers 21 Woodfuel forecasts 22 People and the environment 23 The puzzle: why were we wrong? 29 The puzzle and the challenge 31 3.Professional Realities Normal professional status 34 Things and people 36 Measurement 38 Reductionism: simplifying the complex 42 Economics: culture and cult 49 The professional prison 54 4.The Transfer of Reality Realities 56 Top-down: uppers and lowers, North and South 58 Normal teaching 59 Normal (successful) careers 63 Normal.development bureaucracy 63 Model-Ts and the transfer of technology 67 Model-Ts in agriculture 68 The transfer of procedures (TOP) 71 Dominant realities 74 5.All Power Deceives Power as disability 76 Whose reality? Whose fantasy? 77 Uppers' impediments 78 Lowers' strategies 84 Self-sustaining myth 88 Out-of-touch, out-of-date and wrong 91 Patriarchal prisoners 91 Academic lags 92 Confirmation by questionnaire 93 World Bank and self-deceiving state 97 Whose reality counts? 100 6.Learning to Learn The challenges 102 Streams of change 103 PPvA: confluence and spread 113 RRA and PRA compared 115 A menu for RRA and PRA 116 Practical applications 119 Participatory alternatives to questionnaire surveys 122 Insights for policy 125 Why did it take us so long? 128 7.What Works and Why Insights from the PRA experience 130 Capabilities: they can do it 131 Behaviour and rapport 133 Diagramming and visual sharing 134 Expressing and analysing complexity 135 Sequences 136 Validity and reliability 140 Reversals and reality 146 Reversals of power: from extracting to empowering 154 Principles for participatory learning and analysis 156 A rigour of trustworthiness and relevance 158 Concluding 161 8.Poor People's Realities: Local, Complex, Diverse, Dynamic and Unpredictable Poor people's realities 162 Local livelihood strategies: complex and diverse 163 Complexity and diversity in farming, pastoral and forest systems 167 Complex and diverse for livelihood flows, security and well-being 170 Complexity, diversity and dynamism underperceived 172 Whose priorities count? 174 Who takes the long view? 174 Income, wealth and well-being 176 Whose preferences and criteria count? 179 Diversity within the community 183 Reversals for complexity and diversity 187 9 The New High Ground Paradigms and development 188 The new high ground 190 Parallel evolutions 192 Natural sciences 193 Chaos and complexity theory 194 Social sciences 195 Business management 196 Permanently provisional: the evolving paradigm 197 Diversity and choice: from packages to baskets 201 The fifth D: doubt, and self-critical awareness 201 Practical reflections from PRA 206 Empowerment: lowers can do it 206 Uppers' behaviour and attitudes 207 PRA and development discourse 209 10 Putting the First Last The challenge 210 Bad practice 211 Synergies 214 Empowerment 216 To change institutions 220 Pressures from below: lowers versus uppers 223 New professionalism 228 The primacy of the personal 231 Putting the first last 234 So what? Start! 236 Postscript: Past and Future 238 PRA Contacts and Sources of Information 240 Notes 241 References 255 Index 284 ER -