Learning together: Participatory rural appraisal for coproduction of climate change knowledge

Abstract

Literature indicates a general consensus that knowledge on climate change is critical for enhancing community-based adaptation. Local knowledge tends to be localized to specific contexts and needs to be enhanced to ensure sustainability of adaptation measures. Traditional epistemological methods of research, however, tend to be extractive in nature with little focus on community capacity building, while dissemination of findings is mainly done with academic communities in mind. The focus of this article is to highlight the potential presented by participatory rural appraisal techniques in the process of data collection, with an aim of enhancing collaborative learning and improving community knowledge for climate change adaptation.