Methodological debate in poverty studies: towards ‘participatory qual–quant’?

Abstract

Compared with the divisive views of the past, integrative thinking has recently come to characterise the methodological debate on poverty. ‘Qualitative vs quantitative’ has given way to ‘qual–quant’; ‘cross-disciplinarity’ has replaced ‘economics vs anthropology’. This article attempts to review this change. It begins with a historical overview of the pure economic approach to poverty and its critique. The critique, both from within economics and from the participatory and anthropological disciplines, is examined, and recent trends are considered. The current ‘qual–quant’ approach is illustrated with examples, and the author concludes that the future may well see the emergence of a ‘participatory qual–quant’ approach.

Keywords:

• Methods

The author

Bejoy K. Thomas is a PhD candidate in Development Studies at Tilburg University, The Netherlands. He conducted field research during 2002–2003 and 2004–2005 in rural Kerala in south-west India, applying quantitative, qualitative, and participatory methods.

Notes

1. From a poem by John Godfrey Saxe (1816–1887). The full text appears at http://hinduism.about.com/od/hinduismforkids/a/blindmen.htm

2. PLA is an umbrella term for a wide range of similar approaches and methodologies, including PRA, RRA, PAR, participatory learning methods (PALM), and many others, a common theme to all these approaches being the full participation of people in the processes of learning about their needs and opportunities, and in the action required to address them. See www.iied.org/NR/agbioliv/pla_notes/whatispla.html (retrieved 9 April 2007).

3. www.swan.ac.uk/cds/research/SDRC-conferenceabstracts.htm (retrieved 3 July 2006).

4. www.utoronto.ca/mcis/q2/ (retrieved 3 July 2006).