ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to work in partnership with active local community researchers in Uchira, Tanzania combining Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) methods with longer-term anthropological approaches. The basis for doing this was to go beyond the quick and dirty application of PRA tools to have a deeper community involvement in the research from inception to final analysis. The project set out to analyse collective village life and in particular the operation and impact of a community-managed water scheme. Through exploring the interaction of structural factors and individual agency in shaping who comes to represent the community, this research built an intensive ethnography of the evolution of collective village processes. The chapter presents an overview of this research but with a specific focus on the role of local researchers as community mediators and representatives. It explores these tensions further and also examines the evolving relationship of the research team.
