Mixed Methods Research in Poverty and Vulnerability Sharing Ideas and Learning Lessons

The added value of mixed methods research in poverty and vulnerability is now widely recognized. However, despite the expanding volume of literature on the use of mixed methods, gaps and challenges still remain. This edited volume focuses on issues of credibility, usability and complexity, considering how mixed methods approaches can better respond to these issues so as to make research more credible, usable and responsive to complexity. The contributors share experiences and lessons learned from research in developed and developing country contexts in respect of mixed methods in poverty measurement, evaluation research and the translation from research to policy.

Keetie Roelen is Research Fellow at the Institute of Development and Co-Director of the Centre for Social Protection, University of Sussex, UK. In the past 10 years, Keetie has undertaken research and policy advice in South East Asia, Southern and Eastern Africa and Central and Eastern Europe. Her work has been widely published in peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes.

Laura Camfield is Senior Lecturer in International Development at the University of East Anglia, UK. She trained as an anthropologist, but now works collaboratively using qualitative and quantitative methods and training others in their use. She directs postgraduate research within the School of International Development, reflecting her commitment to improving the quality of development research and analysis.

1. Introduction; Keetie Roelen and Laura Camfield
PART I: POVERTY MEASUREMENT
2. Mixed methods in poverty measurement: qualitative perspectives the 'necessities of life' in the 2012 PSE-UK survey; Eldin Fahmy, Eileen Sutton and Simon Pemberton
3. Deprivation and social citizenship: the objective significance of lived experience; Daniel Edmiston
4. Bringing context to multidimensional poverty: added value and challenges of mixed methods approaches; Neil Dawson
5. Measuring the resilience of vulnerable households in Burkina Faso; Lucrezia Tincani and Nigel Poole
PART II: EVALUATION RESEARCH
6. Assessing rural transformations: piloting a qualitative impact protocol in Malawi and Ethiopia; James Copestake and Fiona Remnant
7. Evaluating the impacts that impact evaluations don't evaluate; Stephen Devereux and Keetie Roelen
PART III: FROM RESEARCH TO POLICY
8. An inclusive proposal for the use of mixed methods in studying poverty: an application to a Colombian municipality; María Fernanda Torres and Edna Bautista Hernández
9. Challenges and Insights from mixed method impact evaluations in protracted refugee situations; Sally Burrows and Marian Read
10. Competing interpretations: human wellbeing and the use of quantitative and qualitative methods; J. Allister McGregor, Sarah Coulthard and Laura Camfield
11. Conclusion; Laura Camfield and Keetie Roelen