1. Water Security in Peri-urban South Asia
Adapting to Climate Change and Urbanization
Inception Workshop
Field Research Methodologies
M. Shah Alam Khan
Hotel Radisson, Kathmandu, Nepal
16 - 20 August 2010

2. Field Research
Field research is not simply gathering ‘facts’ from the field. It is
accompanied by a priori understanding of the processes to be
studied.
Social methods
- Quantitative (Sampling & Questionnaire survey)
- Qualitative (PRA, Stakeholder analysis)
Bio-physical/Hydro-ecological methods
Need to select (a range of) tools to answer the research
question(s).

3. Field Research
Analysis of natural and social (and political and other)
processes in an integrated way.
Example: How the hydrologic cycle affects and is affected by social
processes.
Need to Organize:
- What are the ‘research questions’?
- Which ‘tools’ are appropriate in the investigation?
- How are we going use the ‘tools’?

4. Participatory Approach in Field Research
Basic Questions:
- What is ‘participation’?
- What is people’s knowledge?
- Whose research?

5. Participatory Approach in Field Research
People’s Knowledge and Participatory Research
Learning what the local people think and know is the
foundation for collaborating with them as colleagues.
Local knowledge should neither be romanticized nor be
looked down upon.
Learning the local knowledge of any topic takes some time,
but is important.

6. Participatory Approach in Field Research
People’s Indigenous Knowledge
Indigenous knowledge systems are concrete, practical,
utilitarian, broad, detailed, comprehensive, and usually
sustainable.
They are based on empirical observation, trial and error,
and controlled experimentation over centuries.

7. Participatory Approach in Field Research
Indigenous Knowledge and Scientific Knowledge
Indigenous knowledge has been regarded as “backward
and irrational” by researchers who rely only on ‘science’-
based knowledge.
However, the fact that ‘scientists’ are unaware of the
scientific value, principle, or explanation for a practice does
not mean that the said practices or knowledge do not work
well for farmers nor that they lack a scientific basis.

8. Participatory Approach in Field Research
Principles of Participatory Research
Defined methodology and systematic learning process.
Multiple perspectives.
Group learning process.
Context specific.
Facilitating experts and stakeholders.
Leading to change.

9. Participatory Approach in Field Research
Features of Participatory Research
Community participates actively in the entire participatory
research process.
Research is conducted in and with the community.
The ‘researcher’ is an investigator, colleague, adviser, and
a facilitator.
Research is based on a systems perspective.
Promotes innovative methodologies and flexibility.
Develops appropriate technology to meet the needs of the
community.
Requires interdisciplinary collaboration among
‘researchers’ and community.

10. Participatory Approach in Field Research
Gender and Participation
Gender is a culturally specific set of characteristics
that identifies the social behavior of women and men
and the relationship among them.
Gender refers to social differences, as opposed to
biological ones, between women and men that have been
learned, are changeable over time, and vary widely both
within and between cultures.

11. Participatory Approach in Field Research
Gender Analysis
Gender analysis is the systematic examination of the
roles, relationships and processes between women
and men in all societies, focusing on imbalances in
(decision-making) power, wealth and workload.
Gender analysis can also include the examination of the
multiple ways in which women and men, as social
actors, engage in strategies to transform existing roles,
relationships and processes in their own interest and in
the interest of others.
Gender analysis is cross-cut by other axes of social
differentiation including class, caste, ethnicity and
age.

12. Participatory Approach in Field Research
Gender Equality and Participation in Research
Gender Equality: Equal valuing by society of the
situation and differences of women and men and the
roles they play.
Gender Mainstreaming: Assessing the implication
of any planned action for women and men (Gender
perspective), Formulating legislation, policies or programs.
Equal Involvement of women and men, boys and girls,
is essential in participatory research to understand the
local context since they have different perceptions of
reality due to differentiated tasks, roles and constraints.

13. Points to Ponder
Value of indigenous knowledge
Participatory approach
Interdisciplinarity

14. Disciplinarities
Multi-disciplinarity
Cross-disciplinarity
Interdisciplinarity
Transdisciplinarity
… … …

15. Meshing of disciplinarities
Disciplinarity
“with its own theories, methods and content …with its
distinctiveness being recognized institutionally
largely discrete and autonomous, although not
homogeneous
fails to reflect the changing context
Multi-disciplinarity
Co-existence of multiple, discrete disciplines
individual discipline-based researchers (or teams) do their
best, within their disciplinary confines, to examine an issue
and subsequently collaborate to develop together an overall
analytical synthesis and conclusions.

16. Meshing of disciplinarities
Cross-disciplinarity
One discipline ‘peering’ into another
a topic normally outside a field of study is investigated
with no cooperation from others in the area of study
concerned (e.g. physics of music or the politics of
literature)
Musicians don’t necessarily learn any physics and
physicists do not necessarily learn much about music.
Interdisciplinarity
“integration” of knowledge and methods from different
disciplines rather than co-existence
Jointly/ in integrated manner address things
attempts a deep integration of two or more disciplinary
approaches from the beginning and throughout an entire
research exercise.

17. Meshing of disciplinarities
Transdisciplinarity
one extreme view of interdisciplinarity
Dissolving academic borders, and complete integration
of two or more disciplines with the possibility of forming
a new discipline
unclear to what extent traditional disciplines would
survive; against gains won in terms of the basic research
productivity of individual disciplines.
Based on - "knowledge cannot be singularly claimed as
belonging to or originating in any one discipline".

19. Socio-technical
vs.
Sociotechnical
“Interdisciplinarity in an Individual”

20. Quantitative Methods/Tools

21. Sampling
• Non-probability sampling
• Probability sampling
• Sample size

22. Key Sampling Concepts
(element, sampling unit, sampling frame)

24. Questionnaire Survey
Measurement of variables
- Structured vs. non-structured questionnaire
- Open-ended and closed-ended questions
- Measurement scales
Construction of questionnaire
Length
Content
Wording
Ordering
Pre-testing
Administration of questionnaire
Self administration
Interview
Telephone

25. PRA
Participatory Rapid Appraisal
Participatory Rural Appraisal

26. A family of approaches and methods to
enable rural people to share, enhance,
and analyze their knowledge of life and
conditions, to plan and to act.
(Robert Chambers, 2002).

27. PRA is used for:
• Needs assessment
• Feasibility studies
• Identification of priorities for dev. activities
• Monitoring and evaluation

28. PRA Tools
Timeline
• This tool is used to trace history of the village
area.
• It is usually an oral exercise, recalling important
events/incidents, time gaps.
Purpose
• To get an overview of the history of the village.
• To initiate thinking process in the villagers.
• It can act as a guide to identify and analyse
social and natural changes in the village.

29. Social mapping
mapping of social situation of a village –
habitation pattern, institutions, socio-economic
characteristics, e.g., literacy, land-holding,
livestock-holding, occupation, health status of
the families.
Purpose: - help the villagers understand social
(geographically) arrangement in the village.
- it serves as baseline data on socio-economic
conditions

33. Resource mapping
A map to depict resources of the entire village
area; mostly natural resources
Purpose
• To show different resources in the village related
to livelihoods.
• To list all the resources and visualize them.
• To understand the uses and importance.
• To serve as a basis for the transect walk.

37. Transect walk
• A walk by the facilitators along with few
villagers around the area on a
predetermined path that representatively
covers all types of resources of the village.
• This walk is to look at and physically judge
the state of resources.
• The team focuses on soil, water, forest,
and agriculture.

38. Purpose: to increase understanding of the
community about various natural
resources available in and around the
village.
• To create awareness about local
resources and their use in livelihoods.
• To initiate discussion about resources.

39. Event analysis
Event analysis is one of the
important tools of participatory
research.
It is often called ‘significant event
analysis (SEA)’.
SEA is a way of sharing stories in a
systematic way for service
improvement.

40. Principles:
• Inclusive/involving the whole team
• Holding regular meetings to discuss
events
• Focus on system improvement rather than
the individual.

41. Approaches:
• Using stories
• Using comments, compliments and
feedback
• Qualitative in-depth interviews

42. FGD
• Focus Group Discussion (FGD) is a social
research method to gather qualitative
information from a homogenous group to
address particular issues.

43. FGD is used to extract people’s
sensitivities/feelings, attitudes, perceptions,
reactions and emotions about issues,
which are untouched in survey method.

44. Characteristics of FGD
• No specific questionnaire but a guideline is
used in FGD;
• No quantitative but qualitative data can be
collected through FGD;
• Homogenous group of people are the
participants in FGD;
• Not large but a small number (10-12)
participants;
• Identified group of people;

45. • Participants having same characteristics;
• Facilitation for interaction and discussion
among the participants;
• FGD is a semi-structured group
discussion;
• FGD is for collecting data related to
specific objectives;
• It is a method for discussion not interview.

46. Interviewing
Interviewing is an art, although
there are guidelines.

47. • Interview is both a research method and
technique.
• Ranging from sociologists and
psychologists to educational research
workers, and from political scientists and
economists to oral historians, students of
oral literature use ‘interview’ as a method.

48. • Interviewing is a highly skilled practice.
Some people make better interviewers
than others by virtue of greater natural
sensitivity, tact, patience, or other personal
qualities.

49. Other participatory tools
• Matrix ranking
• Pair-wise ranking
• Institutional mapping
• Mobility mapping
• Cause-and-effect diagram
• … …