Compare methods

	Participatory GIS	Participatory Rural Appraisal
Field	Development Studies	Anthropology
Family	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Year of origin	2006	1994
Originator	Robert Chambers; Jon Corbett; PGIS practitioner community	Robert Chambers and collaborators
Type	Participatory spatial data and mapping approach	Family of participatory field appraisal and planning methods
Seminal source	Chambers, R. (2006). Participatory Mapping and Geographic Information Systems: Whose Map? Who is Empowered and Who Disempowered? Who Gains and Who Loses? The Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries, 25(1), 1-11.	Chambers, R. (1994). The origins and practice of participatory rural appraisal. World Development, 22(7), 953–969.
Aliases	PGIS, PPGIS, Participatory mapping with GIS, Community mapping	PRA, Participatory Learning and Action, Participatory Rural Appraisal Methods, PLA
Related	4	2
Summary	Participatory Geographic Information Systems (PGIS), and the related Public Participation GIS (PPGIS), are approaches in which communities themselves create and use spatial data and maps to represent local spatial knowledge for resource management, land and resource tenure, and planning. Spanning a continuum from sketch mapping with sticks and stones on the ground to georeferenced data held in formal GIS, the approach merges the empowering ethos of participatory development, articulated by Robert Chambers, with the analytical and communicative power of geographic information technology.	Participatory rural appraisal is a growing family of approaches and methods that enable local people to share, enhance, and analyze their own knowledge of their lives and conditions, and to plan and act on it. Associated above all with Robert Chambers, PRA reverses the conventional research relationship: outside facilitators hand over the stick, and community members themselves do the mapping, ranking, diagramming, and analysis that drive planning and action.