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

Abstract

Efforts at making evaluation culturally relevant have become central to evaluation discourses globally. However, global attempts at culturally responsive practice have not succeeded in incorporating African voices. This article discusses African perspectives on decolonization and indigenization of evaluation. It further provides a description of an African relational evaluation paradigm as a basis for originating evaluation practices and theories rooted in African world views, and provides examples of evaluation studies that illustrate relational evaluation approaches. It makes claims for an African evaluation tree metaphor that features approaches to evaluation in Africa by African theorists.

Conceptualizing Evaluation in African Contexts

“…The evaluation frameworks must therefore be context sensitive; created based upon locally informed constructs; and adopt local data collection methodologies. These form a package of liberation by reclaiming lost NEW DIRECTIONS FOR EVALUATION • DOI: 10.1002/ev Source: Adapted from Chilisa et al, 2016. identities falsely deposed by Western ways and create spaces for self-identity and reflection (Chilisa, 2012). Chilisa and Malunga (2012) and Chilisa et al (2016) presented four evaluation frameworks informed by African philosophies under what they called the African evaluation tree metaphor.…”

“…Cloete () asserts that the difference between an African and a Western evaluation paradigm is that an African evaluation paradigm is more sensitive to African cultural contexts and practices, with the aim of achieving the most accurate and valid results. Chilisa, Major, Gaotlhobogwe, and Mokgolodi (), Cloete (), and Chilisa, Major, and Khudu‐Petersen () posit that evaluation may be understood best when explained when employing the principles that consider the history, culture, values, worldviews, philosophies, and belief systems, that inform African experiences. The African‐rooted evaluation approaches help evaluators to evaluate with cultural lens that focus on African values, beliefs system, customs, ways of knowing, and ways of constructing knowledge.…”

“…Chilisa and Malunga () and Chilisa et al. () presented four evaluation frameworks informed by African philosophies under what they called the African evaluation tree metaphor. The evaluation frameworks were depicted under four branches (Figure ).…”

“…The strength of the framework model is its heart, which no other framework has except the one provided in Chilisa et al. (). But, even then retribution is an added aspect in this proposed model.…”

“…Such frameworks must take into account the Indigenous peoples' interests, knowledge, and experiences: "religions, cultural traditions, norms, language, metaphors, Indigenous knowledge systems, community stories, legends, folklores, social problems, rapid social changes, or public policies of the studies culture, as opposed to conceptual frameworks that emanate from some universalistic or developed world literature" (Adair as cited in Chilisa, 2012, p.33). These frameworks must be rooted on African philosophical assumptions of relational ontology, axiology, epistemology, and methodology (Chilisa, 2012;Chilisa et al, 2016Chilisa et al, , 2017. These are described next.…”