Compare methods

	Participatory Rural Appraisal	Photovoice	Rapid Ethnographic Assessment
Field	Anthropology	Anthropology	Anthropology
Family	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Year of origin	1994	1997	2001
Originator	Robert Chambers and collaborators	Caroline Wang & Mary Ann Burris	James Beebe (building on rapid rural appraisal traditions)
Type	Family of participatory field appraisal and planning methods	Participatory visual research and action method	Team-based, time-bounded qualitative inquiry
Seminal source	Chambers, R. (1994). The origins and practice of participatory rural appraisal. World Development, 22(7), 953–969.	Wang, C., & Burris, M. A. (1997). Photovoice: Concept, methodology, and use for participatory needs assessment. Health Education & Behavior, 24(3), 369–387.	Beebe, J. (2001). Rapid Assessment Process: An Introduction. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press. ISBN: 9780759100114
Aliases	PRA, Participatory Learning and Action, Participatory Rural Appraisal Methods, PLA	Photo Voice, Participatory Photography, Photo-Novella, Community Photography Method	Rapid Assessment Process, REA, Rapid Assessment Procedures (RAP), Rapid Ethnographic Procedures
Related	2	2	2
Summary	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.	Photovoice is a participatory visual method in which community members use cameras to document their own lives and concerns, then collectively discuss and interpret the images to surface shared issues and influence policy. Developed by Caroline Wang and Mary Ann Burris in 1997, it has three goals: to let people record and reflect their community's strengths and concerns, to promote critical dialogue through group discussion of photographs, and to reach policymakers with that community-generated knowledge.	Rapid ethnographic assessment — also called the Rapid Assessment Process — is intensive, team-based qualitative inquiry that uses triangulation, iterative data analysis, and additional rounds of data collection to quickly develop a preliminary understanding of a situation from the insiders' point of view. Formalized by James Beebe, it compresses the logic of long-term ethnography into days or weeks for applied settings where decisions cannot wait for a year of fieldwork.