After the Flood in Pakistan 38 Berlin Geographical Papers - Freie ...

3 Rapprochement of the field: research methods for assessing flood effects in
rural Sindh
Assessing the livelihood situation in eight villages pre-selected by the German Red
Cross/Pakistan Red Crescent Society (GRC/PRCS) presented a number of logistical and
methodological challenges. A team of Master students and their supervisors carried out the
fieldwork in eight villages of three districts
in Sindh-Province. The selected
sites represent locations where the
organisations plan to implement longterm
development programming after
the relief activities were phased out
over March 2011. As such, the assessment
is aimed to prepare the shift
from relief to development activities of
the two organisations and to set the
ground on which appropriate project
measures can be carried out that strive
to improve the livelihoods of affected
populations. In order to achieve this
goal, the assessment team consisting of
twelve students and two supervisors
was divided into six smaller teams that
were complemented by a local research
assistant for translation. These
teams visited each of the eight selected
villages for three to five days between
February 14 th and March 1 st, and
carried out altogether 37 village focus
groups, 296 questionnaire-based individual
household interviews and 16
expert interviews (cf. Table 3.1). The
amount of data gathered is representative of the applied three-tiered methodological
approach that consisted of a village survey supported by focus groups carried out with
members of respective village communities, a subsequent questionnaire-based household
survey, and open interviews with experts. This initial step after entering a village was to
engage in longer focus group discussion with the aim to assess the social composition,
infrastructral endowments and shortcomings, to get an idea about economic activities and
existing social and power relations influencing life in a village, and to gather accounts of
the losses endured in the flood event of 2010. These discussions proved quite useful to get
an overview of the situation and to get to know the target communities better. The latter
was important, as field teams spent three to five days in each location, and developing a
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