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"Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better." (Maya Angelou)
Potential for Future Learning Pathway Iterations
At this point I am not aware of any plans for another iteration of the Learning Pathway - and perhaps this is before the beginning, and something will emerge in its time. The image below offers some of the characteristics a future iteration might include based on the learnings and feedback from this experience. I see people coming together in a space that cultivates love and respect, with a process that recognizes the presence of sacredness in community. Each part in the evaluation ecosystem leads its own work and everyone comes together with others to explore how their collective work can help evaluation serve African Nova Scotian and Mi’kmaw communities in meaningful ways. A layer of reflection and learning could be woven throughout.
This picture is offered as food for thought and as a way of synthesizing some of the learnings from the first Learning Pathway experience. Any actual design would have to be co-created by people from all the parts of the evaluation ecosystem working together.
African Nova Scotian and Mi’kmaw communities could lead the work of building evaluation approaches and processes that reflect their world views. Teaching, support, and mentorship for practising evaluation this way could come from Black and Indigenous evaluators and respected community leaders, who could hold the space for community members coming together.
The learning, practice, and reflection processes would be ongoing and draw on and centre relationships in the communities. Community members could work on evaluation projects in their communities, and Black and Indiegenous evaluators and respected community leaders could provide thought partnership and support and help community members bring their experiences and learnings back to the full group for reflection and discussion.
This ongoing connected work could become a community of practice where new and emerging evaluators dig deep into their work together to support each other and learn from each other.
A primary role for White evaluators could be helping each other learn to recognize the Colonial Matrix of Power. White evaluators could form a peer support group or community of practice for collectively examining how tenets of White supremacy and colonial thinking manifest in the field of evaluation. For example we could collectively identify assumptions and signals of racism, capitalism, misogyny, hetrosexism and patriarchy that show up in our evaluation thinking, language, and actions. When we start recognizing these signals we could develop alternative and loving ways of thinking about, talking about, and practising evaluation, and we could discuss these ideas with communities for their perspectives. We could also hold each other accountable for this work.
It would be important to embrace and build on the learning opportunities the Canadian Evaluation Society is leading with regard to learning about the impacts of colonialism and colonial evaluation on Indigenous communities. Truth and Reconciliation for Evaluators is designed to help evaluators recognize the impacts of colonialism on Indigenous peoples in Canada, recognize how colonial world views impact the evaluation process, incorporate cultural safety principles into evaluation practice, and to actively practice evaluation.
White evaluators can learn about Indigenous evaluation approaches and experiences by reading and listening to Indigenous voices in evaluation. One place to do that is in the Canadian Journal of Program Evaluation new journal section called Roots and Relations, a space for Indigenous voices in evaluation.
Government champions and funders could lead their work to educate themselves about the colonial nature of evaluation; some of this work could be done in collaboration with White evaluators and focus on recognizing racist, capitalist, misogynist, hetrosexist and patriarchal assumptions and ideas that show up in our evaluation thinking, language, and actions. The government champions and funders could create opportunities to educate others within their spheres of influence about the colonial nature of their evaluation and reporting expectations from communities.
Their work could include educating themselves - and learning directly from communities when appropriate - about different ways of knowing and being. This could help build respect and appreciation for community-centred evaluation approaches that reflect community worldviews. An integral part of their work would be examining their policies and procedures and working to decolonize them.
People in every part of the evaluation ecosystem (e.g., community members and organizations, program staff and decision makers, government and funders who require evaluations, the people doing the work of evaluating) could lead its own work. Leaders from all parts of the system could facilitate people coming together regularly to explore the perspectives each party brings, map out how they all interact, and examine the setting(s) where this all happens. They could work on understanding how their interactions impact the system and others within it, and build strategies to strengthen relationships across the ecosystem throughout the process. Together they might create innovative approaches to doing evaluation in communities, and try them to see if they serve communities well, iterate, and gradually improve and transform evaluation.
This picture is offered as food for thought and as a way of synthesizing some of the learnings from the first Learning Pathway experience. Any actual design would have to be co-created by people from all the parts of the evaluation ecosystem working together.
Building evaluation approaches that reflect community world views
African Nova Scotian and Mi’kmaw communities could lead the work of building evaluation approaches and processes that reflect their world views. Teaching, support, and mentorship for practising evaluation this way could come from Black and Indigenous evaluators and respected community leaders, who could hold the space for community members coming together.
The learning, practice, and reflection processes would be ongoing and draw on and centre relationships in the communities. Community members could work on evaluation projects in their communities, and Black and Indiegenous evaluators and respected community leaders could provide thought partnership and support and help community members bring their experiences and learnings back to the full group for reflection and discussion.
This ongoing connected work could become a community of practice where new and emerging evaluators dig deep into their work together to support each other and learn from each other.
White evaluators learning together to see colonialism and learning how to dismantle it
A primary role for White evaluators could be helping each other learn to recognize the Colonial Matrix of Power. White evaluators could form a peer support group or community of practice for collectively examining how tenets of White supremacy and colonial thinking manifest in the field of evaluation. For example we could collectively identify assumptions and signals of racism, capitalism, misogyny, hetrosexism and patriarchy that show up in our evaluation thinking, language, and actions. When we start recognizing these signals we could develop alternative and loving ways of thinking about, talking about, and practising evaluation, and we could discuss these ideas with communities for their perspectives. We could also hold each other accountable for this work.
It would be important to embrace and build on the learning opportunities the Canadian Evaluation Society is leading with regard to learning about the impacts of colonialism and colonial evaluation on Indigenous communities. Truth and Reconciliation for Evaluators is designed to help evaluators recognize the impacts of colonialism on Indigenous peoples in Canada, recognize how colonial world views impact the evaluation process, incorporate cultural safety principles into evaluation practice, and to actively practice evaluation.
White evaluators can learn about Indigenous evaluation approaches and experiences by reading and listening to Indigenous voices in evaluation. One place to do that is in the Canadian Journal of Program Evaluation new journal section called Roots and Relations, a space for Indigenous voices in evaluation.
Government and funders decolonizing their thinking
Government champions and funders could lead their work to educate themselves about the colonial nature of evaluation; some of this work could be done in collaboration with White evaluators and focus on recognizing racist, capitalist, misogynist, hetrosexist and patriarchal assumptions and ideas that show up in our evaluation thinking, language, and actions. The government champions and funders could create opportunities to educate others within their spheres of influence about the colonial nature of their evaluation and reporting expectations from communities.
Their work could include educating themselves - and learning directly from communities when appropriate - about different ways of knowing and being. This could help build respect and appreciation for community-centred evaluation approaches that reflect community worldviews. An integral part of their work would be examining their policies and procedures and working to decolonize them.
Systems thinking & action
Here is a description of the Learning Pathway. It’s set up as a stand-alone piece so readers can refer to it easily throughout the blog series.
The main purpose of this blog series is to share learnings (and perspectives) from the Learning Pathway experience that could be valuable to others interested in transforming evaluation so that it can better serve racialized communities, and influencing the evaluation ecosystem to support racial justice.
In the blogs series we will be exploring:
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