Out of this emerged the Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) approaches
developed by Robert Chambers and others in the late 1980s and early
1990s. The ambitious World Bank’s ‘Consultations with the Poor’ study
perhaps represents its apogee20, although the quality of different
components of the project was variable, and it has stimulated much critical
reflection among practitioners (e.g. Cooke and Kothari 2001; Cornwall and
Pratt 2003). The key promise of participatory methodologies is that they are
'experience-near' in terms of their participant/respondents: they are able to
reflect more closely the knowledge and worldview of people themselves
than more formal, abstract, or 'scientific' approaches.
The desire to create both a space for people to reflect on and share their
experiences, and conduct research that generates valuable outcomes for
participants, policy makers, and practitioners, is what, we contend, links
participatory and ‘quality of life’ research (White and Pettit 2004). Examples
of mutually beneficial engagements are the use of participatory
methodologies by individualised quality of life measures such as the Person
Generated Index21, and the combination of participatory research and
measurement in the Participatory Numbers Network (Holland and
Abeyasekera, forthcoming). However, most quality of life research has been
undertaken in rich Western countries and reflects their concerns. We begin
our survey of this literature with research by health psychologists and
clinicians.