Date/Time
Date(s) - 06/12/2023
0:00
Categories
Date: 6th December 2023
Cost: Free Webinar
Description:
Bagele Chilisa, associate professor at the University of Botswana, Nicky Bowman, president of Bowman Performance Consulting and evaluator and assistant researcher at the University of Wisconsin Madison, and Michael Harnar, assistant professor at Western Michigan University, will have an interactive conversation on the JMDE special issue on decolonization about decolonizing the publication process.
Abstract: In July 2023, The Evaluation Center at WMU partnered with the International Evaluation Academy to publish a special issue of the Journal of MultiDisciplinary Evaluation titled “Decolonizing Evaluation: Towards a Fifth Paradigm”. This was considered a watershed for the International Evaluation Academy – the first science output, and on such an important topic. The special issue was edited by Bagele Chilisa and Nicky Bowman, with managerial support from Michael Harnar, current co-executive editor of JMDE. The collaboration among the partners was deep and at times intimate, as they negotiated how best to respectfully dive into the challenging topic of “decolonizing evaluation”. As Ian Goldman wrote in his Foreword, this was to be “an important contribution to rethinking how evaluation can be fit for purpose in a world of polycrises, where the traditional Western growth models have led us to the brink of catastrophe. We need different ways of looking at the world, and learning from indigenous and decolonized approaches will be key in us garnering the wisdom to learn and transform how we use evaluation in the service of humanity and Nature, rather than for continued exploitation and despoliation.” (p. 1). In this Eval Café presentation, Bagele, Nicky, and Michael will reflect on the collaboration that brought this important contribution to the open-access evaluation canon and discuss some of the numerous values-laden, decolonized, and cultural conversations they had in the process.