AEA365 Contributor, Curated by Elizabeth Grim

Justin Laing is the principal of Hillombo LLC, a capital and race critical strategy, research, planning, and evaluation consultancy rooted in Black Studies.

Recently, I’ve been thinking that the justness and criticality of my evaluation or reflection work is related to my consideration of the dominating histories of “culture” in Western Europe and the U.S. I have been persuaded by the argument of Raymond Williams, in “Culture and Society: 1780-1950,” that “culture,” as it is exists today in the name of philanthropic “arts and culture” programs, originated in the 18th and 19th centuries as a strategy of capitalist reform and perpetuation. Worsening matters, Williams’ case for “culture as reform” connects well with Dylan Rodriguez’s argument that reform is a strategy of counterinsurgency.

¡Hola/Hello! My Name is Eva Maria Chavez (Eva, as in “4-eh-vah-eh-vah”), and I am a community-based evaluator and organizer who, until recently, worked at The Music Center of Los Angeles (TMC). TMC provides cultural events for the diverse community of Los Angeles County. My role was to operationalize the theory of change across the organization …

Arts, Culture, and Museums TIG Week: Linguistic Inclusivity: Navigating Language Justice in Creative Spaces by Eva Chavez Read More »

Greetings from Vidhya Shanker, convener of The May 13 Group. Art history taught me to ask why makers choose some forms and not others. In his video echoing the idea that Nicky Bowman, Jara Dean-Coffey, and myself have shared—to use a forest ecosystem instead of a single tree as a metaphor for the knowledge economy …

Arts, Culture, and Museums TIG Week: Trees of Knowledge & Trees of Life: Modernist Discourses of Art and Evaluation by Vidhya Shanker Read More »

Hi there! We’re Myrline Newton and Brianna Smith–Program Managers of Equitable Vaccines! Myrline here, I am typically the one “on the ground,” facilitating events. Brianna here, I typically handle “behind the scenes” tasks like developing program resources and also serve as one of the program evaluators. Program Snapshot Equitable Vaccines is a collaborative initiative between …

Arts, Culture, and Museums TIG Week: Enhancing Vaccine Confidence in a Culturally Responsive Way by Brianna Smith and Myrline Newton Read More »