Best of AEA365: As an Evaluator, Do I Use Words (e.g., Stakeholder) That Can Be Harmful to Others? by Goldie MacDonald & Anita McLees
Hello, we’re Goldie MacDonald and Anita McLees from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In 2020, CDC scientists and communication specialists prepared principles and preferred terms for non-stigmatizing, bias-free language to guide employees engaged in COVID-19 response activities. At the time, we were both deployed to this response and read the document in earnest. While others have known this for some time, we learned that stakeholder can have “a violent connotation for tribes and urban Indian organizations.” As we looked at the term more closely, we saw that others have questioned its origins and use. For example, in 9 Terms to Avoid in Communications with Indigenous Peoples, authors in British Columbia, Canada explained that “Indigenous Peoples are rights and title holders not stakeholders so avoid this term at all costs.” In Banishing “Stakeholders”, Joshua Sharfstein, Vice Dean for Public Health Practice and Community Engagement at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and former Secretary of the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, discussed the term as having a “mercenary connotation.” It was used to refer to someone who “held the money of bettors while the game was on.” He explained that this meaning likely evolved to current understandings of the term that include individuals or groups with a concern or interest (e.g., financial) in an endeavor, organization, program, etc. In the same article, he cautioned that the catchall phrase “obscures the landscape in question, much like a dense fog.”