Participatory appraisal in the UK urban health sector

Rapid Rural Appraisal (RRA) and Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) emerged in the context of working with rural communities in developing countries. But the principles of participation and of action-oriented research are equally valid for development work in the urban sector, and in industrialised countries. This article describes the use of participatory appraisal techniques in disadvantaged communities in the UK, in the fields of health and social welfare. Drawing on a case-study of her work, the author looks at the practical, organisational, and political difficulties inherent in bringing together multi-agency professionals and public-sector workers, and members of local communities, and in developing a functional consensus between them.     

Army administration tensions over Algeria's Centres de regroupement, 1954–1962

Thirty years after the end of the Algerian War of Independence the bulk of the contemporary military documentation has been released, after classification, and is available at the military archives of the Service Historique de l'Armée de Terre at Vincennes. This study re‐examines the French army's pacification policy and its strategy of regrouping the rural population into resettlement centres and re‐evaluates the role of the Sections Administratives Spécialisées (SAS) in administering this resettled population. The speed and scale of regrouping is reconfirmed from army statistical data. The significant critical inspections carried out by the quasi‐civilian Inspection Générale des Regroupements de la Population (IGRP) led to army‐civilian conflict as did the efforts of SAS units to turn this damaging military operation into a more positive rural renovation programme. By the end of the war both the IGRP and the SAS gave ground to military evaluations of the situation and disillusionment crept in as the resettlement programme came to an end. The newly available archival documentation also serves to substantiate the accuracy of Michel Cornaton's pioneering mid‐1960s research on Algeria's centres de regroupement which was carried out in the face of the then prevailing military secrecy.