The latest development: DEFINING THE DOMAINS

The following thoughts are based on the latest comments from Barnaby and Marshall (I copy them below):

Barnaby Peacocke said:
A. On the second domain of change the question about 'perceptions' leaves it very open to interpretation by those telling their stories as to what changes are relevant to the domain. The first domain is much clearer here. This isn't necessarily a bad thing but needs an eye kept on exactly what we want to learn in this domainB. Similarly the third domain about technologies is very much dependant on different interpretations as to what technologies are - are they just bits of kit, or do they include skills, knowledge, methods etc?

And Marshall Shumba from Zimbabwe suggested:
I think it is usefull to use domains but these domains should be built with markets chain actors. This will enable us to capture or cater for the various stories of change from different actors in the chain.

So... to keep the conversation moving, I suggest the following:

The domain of

• 
  Changes in the capacity of marginalised producers to engage with other market actors
  

seems to be clear.

I would say that, in order to make it clearer, examples of types of capacity to engage can be:

- Access to market information.
- Possibility to talk (face-to-face or on the phone or via email, etc) with other market actors (including politicians and other policy-makers).
- Possibility to organise meetings where they are the ones who invite other market actors (It is important to see how the level of attendance and interest from other market actors to participate in the meetings organised by farmers change through time).
- Access to spaces where policies are discussed.

The domain of

• 
  Changes in the ways in which marginalised producers perceive themselves as market actors.

seems to be less clear (according to Barney).

I do not agree totally with Barnaby, in the sense that self-perceptions are broad but once you specify that the self-perception we are interested in is as a market actor, it becomes more specific. For example:
- The person can feel that at the beginning of the project, he/she was feeling as a subsistence farmer and later on s/he feels that s/he can begin a small-enterprise; or s/he feels that s/he wants to move away from farming because s/he sees now as a trainer of farmers and the s/he can make a living out of it. etc.

On the domain of

• 
  Changes in the access of marginalised producers to technologies that contribute to their participation in a particular market system.

I do agree with Barnaby, I think that we can think of technology in a broad sense; i.e. hardware (machines and ICTs), software (techniques, knowledge, technocal info, procedures, standards, etc) and other technology-related inputs such as improved seeds and fertilizers.

This domain of change responds to the need we have to keep an eye on technology dynamics.

Concerning marshall's comment, Davies and Dart suggest that it is OK to allow participants to define domains of change. However, I think it is important to maintain the number of domains as small as possible. Otherwise, the excercise can become practically impossible to undertake in a reasonable time. It is also important to keep in mind that collecting the stories is time-consuming and that it might be very difficult to collect them form market actors who do not belong to the community of farmers.

To Marshall (and the other project managers), I have three suggestions:

1. You can allow the participants to define all the domains of change before hand and allow them to tell their stories within those domains.
2. You can simply collect the stories without suggesting any domain and then, when we analyse the stories, we can see if there are domains that emerge from the stories collected
3. You can use the domains we define here amongst us (three so far) with one domain that can be defined by the farmers (I suggest maximum one because experience seems to show that more than 4 domains make the excercise very time-consuming).

Each project manager can have a different approach. It will be interesting to contrast the results at the end.

I need your ideas. What do you all think? Marshall?