Indigenous Peoples in Evaluation
Minji Cho, MSc
Researcher/Evaluator
Claremont Graduate University
CLAREMONT, California, United States
Location: Room 209
Abstract Information: Oral traditions and stories from Indigenous communities are often excluded from evaluation, or deemed unreliable evidence, because Euro-Western-derived evaluation approaches have been dominant and considered credible in the field. Decolonizing evaluation starts with acknowledging the value of these stories and integrating them into evaluation practice. The goal of decolonizing evaluation is to transform evaluation practice fundamentally by incorporating collective history and individual stories into the process and creating space for oppressed people and local knowledge. Despite the need for decolonizing evaluation practice, the field has a limited understanding of how to implement it. This session presents a conceptual model of decolonizing evaluation practice, developed using an Indigenous mixed-methods design that includes a conventional content analysis method and an Indigenous interview. The model illustrates the processes and outcomes of decolonizing evaluation. The session will demonstrate how the conventional and Indigenous methods were used to develop and validate the model and gather feedback from participants to further consolidate it.
Relevance Statement: Theories, classifications, and descriptions of knowledge were structured through the lens of colonizers at the expense of Indigenous peoples (Smith, 2021). Thus, imperial and colonial ideologies are deeply rooted in our knowledge systems. Education systems, organized and governed by colonizers, were an effective tool to reinforce imperial perspectives on how we perceive science and theories. This imbued colonized minds with a superiority of colonizers’ knowledge and culture (Smith, 2021). As a result, colonial legacies are still prevalent in evaluation, such as imposing donor-defined impact, preferring external expertise to a national evaluator, and excluding local communities in evaluation design (Peace Direct, 2021). Moreover, traditional knowledge or oral tradition, including songs, poems, and rituals, in Indigenous societies, were often despised for upholding the superiority of colonizers’ knowledge systems (Chilisa, 2020). This resulted in methodological imperialism in research and evaluation, in which evaluators often adhere to hegemonic methodologies built on colonizers’ knowledge systems, rather than centering oppressed peoples and their knowledge systems to answer their evaluation questions. Methodological imperialism often blind evaluators, leading to harmful evaluation practices and misrepresentations of Indigenous peoples. While Indigenous approaches, such as Kaupapa Māori research, have emerged against the dominant western approach, they are still not widely integrated into the mainstream of the research and evaluation community (Smith, 2021). While the field of evaluation acknowledges the need for decolonizing evaluation practices to avoid any potentially harmful practices, the field has a limited understanding of how decolonization occurs and whether these practices contribute to program success. The session will present the findings from the study, which aims to develop the conceptual model of decolonizing evaluation. The study employed an Indigenous mixed methods design, which consists of a conventional content analysis method and an Indigenous interview method. The study reviewed 15 decolonizing evaluation documents identified from peer-reviewed journals and grey literature and conducted both quantitative and qualitative analyses of the sampled documents to develop the conceptual model of decolonizing evaluation. The study identified variables relating to the processes and outcomes of decolonizing evaluation practices. To validate the model, the study conducted 10 Indigenous interviews with Indigenous and general evaluation scholars and practitioners. Through the interview, the model has been refined and the process and outcome variables of the model were validated. The session will present the visual representation of the decolonizing evaluation conceptual model and discuss how the model could be used to help our decolonizing evaluation practice. References. - Chilisa, B. (2020). Indigenous research methodologies. SAGE Publications. - Peace Direct. (2021). Time to decolonize aid [White Paper]. Peace Direct. London. https://www.peacedirect.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/PD-Decolonising-Aid_Second-Edition.pdf - Smith, L. T. (2021). Decolonizing methodologies: research and indigenous peoples (Third). Zed.