James Mullooly and Henry Delcore

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Navigating Your Way Stages of Development and
Assessment PAR RAP

• James Mullooly and Henry Delcore
• Institute of Public Anthropology
• California State University Fresno
• http//www.csufresno.edu/ipa

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Staying the Course?
http//www.justtotheleft.com/
Navigating your way
Cartoon by Tab (Thomas Boldt), from The Calgary
Sun, Alberta, Canada.
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What is a course correction?

• When a spacecraft gets off of its trajectory, or
  path through space, it must be put back on the
  right path.
• The location of the spacecraft is determined and
  its course vector (the speed and direction of its
  flight) is calculated.
• This is compared with the path it should be on.
• A new vector is computed that will put it back on
  course.

Artwork by Edward Valigursky
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WHAT EXPERIENCE TEACHES US
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Participatory Action Research Thanks to Patricia
J. Hammer, Ph.D.Director, Center for Social Well
Being.

• History, origin and development
• Kurt Lewin, social psychologist
• Coined Action Research
• Paulo Freire, adult educator
• Critical consciousness, praxis
• Orlando Fals Borda, sociologist
• Engaged social science

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Working definition of Participation

• Power sharing in decision making contexts

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Generating knowledge

• Why is experience so important and what is its
  relationship to knowledge?
• There is no doubt that all our knowledge begins
  with experience. - Immanuel Kant

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CONSCIOUSNESS RAISING

• KNOWLEDGE
• TACIT / EXPLICIT
• To become aware of the unintended consequences
  of our unconscious actions.
• Pierre Bourdieu

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Principles of PAR

• Community focus of analysis
• Builds on community strengths, resources
• Facilitates collaborative relationships
• Promotes co-learning
• Integrates research and action
• Cyclical process
• Disseminates knowledge generated
• Modified from Barbara Israel, et al. 2003

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Participants become researchers

• Consecutive sessions
• Present information gathered opinions,
  experiences, perspectives of other community
  members
• Analysis, debate, conclusions
• Prioritization of problems, issues identified

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Keys to PAR

• Creating a team
• Assessing skills strengths, weaknesses,
  potentials
• Facilitating comprehension and acquisition
• Inviting participation
• Learning by practice
• Trial contexts practice, reflection, dialogue,
  and action

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Rapid Assessment Process RAP
One Example of PAR is RAP PARParticipatory
Action Research RAPRapid Assessment Process

• Thanks to James Beebe,
• Gonzaga University
• Based on a draft of paper presented at the
  Society for Applied Anthropology, March 8, 2002,
  Atlanta GA

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RAP

• RAP is intensive, team-based ethnographic
  inquiry using triangulation and iterative data
  analysis and additional data collection to
  quickly develop a preliminary understanding of a
  situation from the insiders perspective.

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• RAP cannot be done by one person.

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RAP can be used to

• make preliminary decisions about interventions or
  changes
• make decisions about additional research.
• RAP can also be used for monitoring and
  evaluation.

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Usually RAP should NOT be used

• for estimating numbers or percents.

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Results can be produced in

• as few as four days,
• but usually requires several weeks.

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The RAP team should seek out

• the poorer,
• less articulate,
• more upset, and
• those least like the members of the
  RAP team.

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Stories NOT Answers

• The goal is to get the insiders to tell their
  stories and NOT answer the questions of the
  outsiders.

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Teamwork

• The success of RAP depends upon the quality of
  the teamwork.

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Intensive teamwork

• Intensive teamwork for both the data
  collection and analysis is an alternative to
  prolonged fieldwork.

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Intensive teamwork

• Intensive teamwork helps produce a preliminary
  understanding of a situation from the insiders
  perspective.
• e.g., Team Interviewing

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Team interaction

• Team interaction is necessary for rapid
  triangulation in data collection.
• Team interaction is necessary for understanding
  the insiders categories and definitions.
• e.g., weekly brainstorming sessions

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Insiders

• Teams should be composed of a mix of insiders
  and outsiders.
• At least one team member of the RAP team should
  be an insider

• After the rest of the RAP team leaves, the
  insider continues to be called upon to clarify
  results, resolve pending issues, and help
  organize local responses.

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Flexibility no Panaceas here

• Flexibility is critical for using RAP in a wide
  variety of situations.
• Some specific techniques have proven to be
  especially effective, but they are not the only
  techniques that can be used.
• e.g., Relaxed, semi-structured interviewing that
  provides respondents with time to think is often
  effective in eliciting stories.

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Use a RAP Sheet

• A RAP Sheet should be used to document what was
  done.
• A RAP Sheet allows the reader of a RAP report to
  judge the quality of the work.

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Successful RAP

• Members of the RAP team need to recognize
• They dont know enough to ask questions,
• They dont know enough to provide the answers,
  but
• They do know enough to want to empower others to
  solve their own problems.

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Iterative Analysis and Additional Data Collection

• Time is divided between
• collecting information and
• data analysis and making changes prior to the
  next round of data collection.

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Analysis

• Analysis begins with the first round of data
  collection.
• Analysis involves
• Coding the data,
• Displaying relationships in the data, and
• Drawing conclusions.

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Member checking

• Sharing conclusions before they are final with
  the people who have provided the information is a
  critical part of the iterative analysis process.

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In ConclusionConsider Becoming a RAPer
Thanks for Your Time James Mullooly and Henry
Delcore Institute of Public Anthropology CSU-Fresn
o http//www.csufresno.edu/ipa