11.


There are further problems of communicating knowledge between distinct
knowledge systems. The production sites where the local vegetables were
grown changed shape and area as the women took advantage of rainfall patterns
as the season advanced to make additional sowings while neither the market
value of the product traded nor the opportunity cost of female labour (based
on market wage rate) would seem adequate measures of the value of either
women's labour time or of the local vegetables to the farming system. The
women themselves used a notion of convenience which appeared to be a compound
of characteristics such as: easy to grow near the house, avai.labilty (fresh
or dried) at moments critical from thepoint of view of diet manage-
ment, ease of processing and preparation, timing of labour inputs, substit-
utability for other crops. The notion encompassed the principle of flexibility
- in this respect, they were reluctant to choose paramount characteristics
either for any one crop or between the range of crops; local vegetables were,
viewed as a bundle of biomass which enabled them to manage their resources and
responsibilities to the best advantage.


The Implications for FSR/E


There are a number of important "lessons" which could be drawn from this
brief review. In sum, these could be reduced to two:
- the need to develop methoaogies far establishing the key field-household
 interactions at an early stage of the diagnostic process
- the need to develop methodologies for mutual communication of key concepts.
 across the boundaries of researchers'and female producers'distinct knowledge.
 systems.


Two techniques which might prove useful diagnostic instruments,usable by
researchers of any background, are: Situation Analysis based on the critical
incident technique; Peer Group workshops.


The former is widely used in diagnostic sessions between researchers and
carefully drawn panels of users in industrial and commercial practice. It
involves informal but structured interviewing which, as users identify
problem areas and describe the boundary conditions, focuses on a
*critical incident' which exemplifies one of the problems. The incident is
then analysed in depth, leading into discussion of desirable ways to deal
with it. Each of the problems is similarly treated in turn.