Seasonal Calendar
A seasonal calendar is a participatory rural appraisal (PRA) tool in which community members chart how key conditions and activities vary across the months or seasons of a typical year on a shared visual matrix. Rows represent variables such as rainfall, crop labour, income, food availability, migration, illness, or expenditure, while columns represent the local division of the year. By filling the cells with stones, marks, or piles whose size shows intensity, participants produce a collective picture of seasonality that reveals when stresses pile up and when slack periods occur.
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Sources
- Chambers, R. (1994). The origins and practice of participatory rural appraisal. World Development, 22(7), 953–969. DOI: 10.1016/0305-750X(94)90141-4 ↗
- Bernard, H. R. (2017). Research Methods in Anthropology: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches (6th ed.). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN: 9780759112421
How to cite this page
ScholarGate. (2026, June 22). Participatory Seasonal Calendar (PRA). ScholarGate. https://scholargate.app/en/anthropology/seasonal-calendar-pra
Which method?
Set this method beside its closest kin and read them side by side — the library lays the books on the table; the choice is yours.
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