notes for participatory mapping in the pottery town (cox town)

Krupa suggested that i do participatory mapping of a community that works from their place of residence. I was to look at and map the following :

a. roles played by men and women
b. space mapping for family and for livelihood
c. economic and political pressures on the community
d. link between this community and the neighbourhood

To begin thinking of the various tools i could use for mapping the community, i needed a starting point. In this case, having visited the locality a couple time before and having interacted with one of the families, i felt that a reasonably good starting point could be to note down my assumptions of what problems the community could be facing to do with each of these areas. This would help me initiate conversations and questions that would them lead to new unthought of realms or even break my preconceptions.

However, as i went deeper into the planning i realised that three days is just not enough to want to set out doing reasearch in a participatory manner. How would i be helping the society? Was i just going to be doing one of those college projects where you go into a community, ask people questions, take their time, but come back and do nothing with it? Would people trust me and offer "real" and personal information if im not really there to help them? Does it make sense to do it? i began to feel uncomfortable to approach the community.

However i ran some ideas for the activities through my head.

The pottery town is a busy place and i wouldnt really be able to get a group of people for an activity at the same time. So the best way would probably be to do the research with a sample of the community, in smaller groups. Maybe 3 men, 3 women from different age groups, and 3 children.

Other than the specific activities, it would also be important to notice body language, general personality and behaviour, and possibly clues from their interaction and conversations with others along the way- these are more likely to be "real" and instinctive.

To keep the activities short and simple, yet to give me a reasonable understanding of the community these are some of the activities that i thought of.

a. role played men and women

Activity- A day in the life of/ role play.

I would create a brief persona of someone (ie someone who lives in one of the houses here) of the opposite sex and ask them to tell me what a day in the life of that person would be like. During the activity i would give them scenarios to find out details of the roles played in terms of decision making, freedom to expression and doing etc.

Some possible questions for a 35-50 yr man role playing for a woman of a younger age (would possibly give me what a man thinks an ideal female's role is);

- You have just finished your 2nd PUc and want to go study in a college on the other side of town, how would you tell your parents and what do you think they will say?

-When would you want to get married and when will your father want you to get married..and mother?

-Would you be allowed to work after marriage?

This activity would be ideal in a mixed group of men and women. Making a male play the role of of a women while having other woman around is likely to bring about agreements and disagreements based on how truthful he is about accepting the negatives and positives of the role a man like him plays. Hopefully it will also make him more sensitive to how this role.

Also the fact that he is just role playing will hopefully make it more fun and he might shed his inhibition.

I would construct similar questions for a middle aged woman, a young woman, a young man, and two children. Children would be important as they are likely notice little things are less inhibit-ant most often. The role plays would subtly address alcoholism, suppression and other issues mentioned in the mind maps, with the use of mild questions.

It may not be possible to this activity in a large group but generally in the workshops in the pottery town one tends to find a mixed bunch of people, i will try finding groups like this.

b. space mapping for family and for livelihood and

c. economic and political pressures on the community

There were a couple of ideas that came up for this- sketch mapping and then pointing things that they would like to change, and a village walk.

This activity would be ideal when done in a large representative group, as it would bring out many issues.

Also here it would be important to distinguish between the needs of the community and the wants of an individual.

It would be slightly tough to get a large bunch of people together and to get some who would be willing to spend time mapping the place out- hence i feel a quick village walk would be the best. (again im skeptical as to why someone should be spending time taking me around and pointing all the issues if im going to be helping them in someway!!)

During this walk i would ask them to talk about the layout of the community, what are things they have been waiting to change and why they havn't changed. What are the pressing pressures? and based on my mind map ask questions for them bring out the various spatial issues. Depending on how the walk goes, either during the course of the walk

or after i would need to go into some of the workshops to ask individuals what they feel. I would feed off the issues that the people who take me on the walk mention to find out the weight of the issue and how universal it is for the community. The individuals would also be able to give me an insight into the family space mapping.

A good way to record this activity would be video and audio interview recording.

Since in this activity i will be looking at issues at the family and community level it would give me a lead into the next mapping exercise of looking at economic and political pressures.Questions of why things haven't changed, and what the govt policies are , why hasn't the govt helped etc, will be very useful to understand the economic and political issues. hence i feel i can club the two activities.

Here i would also find out about facilities such as hospitals and schools- relate these to finances and govt policies.

d. link between this community and the neighborhood

For this activity i thought i could give the representative group a map of the locality and the neighborhood. Each member could mark the interactions they have with the surrounding areas. I would give example from the mind map of the type of interactions and ask them to come up with all the other ones that they could think of. I would give them symbols that they could use for the basic ones and ask them to come up with more for the others they add.

They would have to draw the symbol roughly on the map to mark the interaction.

Eg.

where do they get clay from?

What do you think is over here (pointing to the map)? have you been there? what do you go there for?

where do you go for medical help?

where does your child go to school? etc.