全球智库信息集成服务系统

Overview article in: PLA 57. Guest editors: Izzy Birch, Raffaella Catani with Robert Chambers. For the full table of contents please click on ‘More information’ above.

Immersions are opportunities for development professionals to spend a period of time living with and learning from a poor family. This issue has no precedent. There have been earlier issues devoted to special topics, but none of its predecessors have focused as this one does on the heart of development awareness, commitment, and practice. The experiences described here inspire and disturb. They challenge us professionally, institutionally, and personally. They show that, quietly, something with immense promise has been happening and is gathering momentum. They drive us to ask how much immersions could transform the quality of what is done in the name of development.

Participatory Learning and Action (PLA, formerly PLA Notes) is the world's leading series on participatory learning and action approaches and methods. PLA publishes articles on participation aimed at practitioners, researchers, academics and activists. All articles are peer-reviewed by an international editorial board. See: www.planotes.org