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Attributed to: Julie
Newton 1. What is the community profile 1. What is the community profile The community profile is a detailed community study that has been carried out in each of the research communities using a range of participatory techniques including key informant interviews, observation, and secondary data. The community profiles are a systematic description of the context within which the people and processes being studied by WeD are located. They were an important stage in defining subsequent fieldwork phases. The community profiles are also ‘living documents’ that are constantly being updated and modified with additional data as the field work proceeds.
2. Conceptual rationale for community profile The Community Profile is mainly informed by one of WeD’s theoretical foundations: the Resource Profiles Approach.
3. How community profiles contribute to WeD research The community profile serves the following purposes for the WeD research: 1. Provide a detailed and systematic ethnographic
description of the community context within which the people and
processes to be studied are immediately located. This maps the
social, economic, cultural and political characteristics of the
community and the distribution of resources between households
within the community that is directly comparable with other communities
within the country and broadly across the four countries.
The community profiles did not follow a consistent format, and therefore vary across the four countries. However, they all include details on the following:
5. How the community profile was developed In keeping with WeD’s ethos of methodological
experimentation, a key priority in compiling community profiles
was to ensure each country team sufficient flexibility. This also permitted additional data gathered from the remainder of the ongoing fieldwork to be incorporated into existing community profiles, thus making them ‘living documents’. For this reason, there was no strict grounding and piloting phase.
6. How the community profile was implemented Each community profile was compiled and written by members of the country teams with a detailed working knowledge of each community. The range of methods used to compile the community profiles are administered in the local language by a team of researchers selected by the country teams. As is the case of all the research tools used throughout WeD, the researchers underwent intensive training using the individual country guidelines. Throughout, care was taken to ensure that all key groups were represented covering different socio economic status, ethnicity, gender, age and religion. Findings are recorded in the local language; translation of these into English is ongoing. The implementation of the community profiles consequently involves an ongoing process of updating existing/previous community profiles. Each of the four country teams used a different approach to the community profiles summarised below. Bangladesh
It was found that these methods enabled the teams to involve a greater number of people from the sites where the research is being carried out. While this improved the quality and quantity of data, it also helped familiarise individuals and communities with the research. The second phase in building up the community profiles will involve adding site-specific information found in the Resources and Needs Questionnaire, the Quality of Life instrument and the in-depth, process-orientated research initiatives that are being carried out using a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. These second phase profiles are currently being drafted and will be available shortly. Finally, it is anticipated that in a third iteration the team will use secondary sources to better locate each site in the wider political-economy context of Bangladesh. Research into Structures will contribute to this third phase. Ethiopia
The community profiles for the WeD sites are currently being updated using semi-structured protocol-guided research (WIDE 2) carried out in 2003 by WeD researchers in the 15 WIDE 1 villages and in five additional sites. The wider coverage enables the Ethiopia WeD programme to situate the six sites selected for in-depth study in space and time, covering much of the country’s diversity and recent history. The WIDE 2 protocols gather data on people and society; social structures and dynamics; site history; policy regime interfaces; crises and local responses; men’s conceptions and responses to drought and famine; women’s conceptions and responses to child malnutrition, illness and death; HIV/AIDS and conflict; grounding WeD-related concepts; changes in well-being and inequality; revisiting people and society. These were carried out by a male researcher (talking to men) and a female researcher (talking to women) using the same protocol adapted to the gender of the respondent. For more detail on the protocols, see http://www.wed-ethiopia.org/wide_module_summary.htm
Details on the history of the site together with the cultural meaning of exchange and reciprocity of goods and services, religious spheres (traditional and modern), loyalties, trust, collective action, community identity and significance of individual and social exclusion have also been included together with more descriptive information on the sites using secondary data.
The team in the North East based at Khon Kaen University relied primarily on a selection of ethnographic and participatory methods similar to the Bangladesh team. These included focus groups, semi structured interviews, transect walks, seasonal calendars, time lines, flow diagrams of resources, participatory physical mapping, participatory social mapping, wealth ranking and matrix ranking for the use of various crops. The team in the South based at the Prince of Songkla University, Hat Yai used a similar strategy of key informant interviews, informal interviews with a range of informants, small group discussions, participatory mapping, and participant observation (particularly focused around special events).
7. How the community profiles can be analysed The community profiles provide: a) Detailed qualitative and quantitative material
on each site including rich ethnographic material. The community profiles provide a useful starting point for highlighting ‘traces’ of what dynamics might be at play, suggesting areas for further investigation. Because the community profiles only establish basic parameters of resource distribution, need satisfaction and some subjective views and opinions within the researched communities, more in depth analysis would be needed to explore the intricacies of power relations that underpin poverty within the community. For example, they do not give information on access of all individuals to services and infrastructure within the communities. This detail is being covered by other methods used by the research team such as the RANQ and the process research.
8. Links to other WeD research tools The community profiles play an important role in situating the households and individuals explored in RANQ within the context of the overall community. The household survey work will not capture much of the wider community level information, thus making the community profile an essential complement to the RANQ. They provide an important link to the structures work by providing some explanation for where the community is situated in relation to he wider regional and national context. Similarly, they serve to highlight potential areas of investigation for subsequent QoL work in relation to people’s perceptions of wellbeing.
9. Bangladesh guideline for community profiles
11. Bangladesh community profiles - click here
12. Ethiopia
community profiles
13. Peru community
profiles
15. Further reading
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The
resource profile approach, developed in parallel to the livelihoods
framework, uses the concept of resources rather than ‘capitals’.
It distinguishes between five types of resources (material, human,
social, cultural and natural). In particular, it seeks detailed
information on the social and cultural resources that influence
well-being outcomes. This provides a much richer notion of resources
that recognises how they are defined in their social and cultural
context. The community profiles provide information on access
within the community to a wide range of resources. They also provide
some indication of the prioritisation of resources that may influence
how they are used.
