IPE TIG Week: Engaging with research by Fiona Cram and Aneta Cram

Tena Koutou (Greetings all),

We are Fiona Cram, Director of Katoa Ltd and Editor-in-Chief of Aotearoa New Zealand’s own Evaluation Matters– He Take Tō  Te Aromatai, and Aneta Cram, Masters of Evaluation student and current Indigenous Peoples in Evaluation TIG Program Co-Chair, from Aotearoa New Zealand. We are both affiliated with Ngāti Pāhauwera and Ngāti Kahungunu iwi (tribes) on the east coast of the North Island.

During Thanksgiving week, we would like to extend greetings and aroha (love) to our Native relations in the United States of America and around the globe.

Thinking about the importance of research and evaluation as a space of development and strength for global indigenous peoples, we would like to highlight a few key journals and recent articles to support your work.

Hot Tip:

Did you know that AEA have two evaluation journals that publish quarterly? As members of AEA, you get free online access to past and current journal articles for New Directions for Evaluation and The American Journal of Evaluation.

Rad Resource # 1: New Directions for Evaluation

Check out:

• Inequities and Evaluation Influence

Discusses building evaluation capacity in complex environments. Looks at evaluation in China, India and Chile.

• Culturally competent evaluation in Indian Country

Joan La France explores cultural competency when working in “Indian Country.”

Rad Resource # 2: American Journal of Evaluation

Check out:

• It Is Only New Because It Has Been Missing for so Long: Indigenous Evaluation Capacity Building

Alaska Native program evaluators discuss their journey of developing a vision for building evaluator capacity in their communities and cross-cultural collaboration that led to the development of this shared vision.

Hot Tip:

Both Aotearoa New Zealand Evaluation Association (ANZEA) and the Canadian Evaluation Association are publishing on evaluation and their evaluation journals are open-access.

Rad Resource # 3: Evaluation Matters — He Take T? Te Aromatawai.

Aoteroa New Zealand Evaluation Association’s evaluation journal.

Check out:

• Indigenous programmes and evaluation: An excluded worldview

This article discusses the tensions between communities and evaluators when indigenous evaluators accept government provider contracts to work in an indigenous space in Aotearoa New Zealand.

• Negotiating solidarity between indigenous and transformative paradigms in evaluation

Rad Resource #4: The Canadian Journal of Program Evaluation

Check out:

• Decolonizing and Indigenizing Evaluation Practice in Africa: Toward African Relational Evaluation Approaches

Hot Tip:

• Resources are ready and available There is a lot of research being done currently, by indigenous people and for indigenous peoples. Find out what’s out there and use it to support your own work!
• Different communities have different world-views. This doesn’t mean we can’t learn from each other, so read broadly and read widely.
• Don’t be limited by the Americas! Check out what other evaluation societies in America and globally have to offer. See: Culturally Responsive Evaluation Association, Australasian Evaluation Society, The Alaska Evaluation Network, Hawai’i Pacific Evaluation Association and the European Evaluation Society, to name a few.

The American Evaluation Association is celebrating Indigenous Peoples in Evaluation (IPE)  TIG week. All posts this week are contributed by members of the IPE Topical Interest Group. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org. aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators.