Enhancing cross‐cultural evaluation practice through kaupapa Māori evaluation and boundary critique: Insights from Aotearoa New Zealand

Abstract

In Aotearoa New Zealand, concern about the impact of colonisation and experience of institutional racism has led to calls for evaluative practice to be firmly grounded in a Māori worldview to reflect indigenous values and avoid deficit framings. With this in mind, our evaluation projects have been informed by a blend of kaupapa Māori evaluation and boundary critique to ensure that our systemic inquiries were responsive to hapū aspirations. We focus on the role that boundary critique played in supporting our cross‐cultural evaluation practice. Applying boundary critique enabled the expansion of the evaluand to encompass hapū values and outcomes from a te ao Māori/hapū perspective. We posit that boundary critique is useful when undertaking cross‐cultural evaluations as it provides a way to make explicit the different values of te ao Māori (the Māori world) and te ao Pākehā (the Western World).

Monitoring and evaluation of Indigenous Land and Sea Management: An Indigenous‐led approach in the Arafura Swamp, northern Australia

“…Indigenous-led M& E r ec o g n i s e s t h e au th o r i t y of Indigenous Pe oples in decision-making on Indigenous lands and can help to capture t he holistic nature of ILSM Indigenous-led M&E recognises the authority of Indigenous Peoples in making decisions about M&E on their sovereign lands and situates ILSM in the context of contributing to Indigenous aspirations and goals. This can help to ensure that interwoven cultural, socio-economic, ecological and economic goals are accounted for in M&E programs, and that practices of M&E also directly contribute to these goals (Morishige et al 2018;Hepi et al 2021). This is important because external parties often prioritise relatively narrow and Western-centric indicators which in the long run can reorient ILSM groups away from the goals of clans and Traditional Owners (Muller 2008).…”

“…2018; Hepi et al . 2021). This is important because external parties often prioritise relatively narrow and Western‐centric indicators which in the long run can reorient ILSM groups away from the goals of clans and Traditional Owners (Muller 2008).…”

Critical systems practice 4: Check—Evaluating and reflecting on a multimethodological intervention

“…Gates (2018, p. 202) further develops the case for critical systems heuristics in another paper, seeing it as enabling evaluators to be '… critically reflective about valuing'. Hepi et al (2021) champion boundary critique for cross-cultural evaluation practice, and Foote et al (2020) do the same in the context of community environmental management programmes. Schwandt (2015) and Schwandt and Gates (2021) 1 further press the case for critical systems heuristics and boundary critique, seeing them as providing a means of reflecting on the professional ethics of evaluators and as offering primary methodological support for their 'value-critical' approach to evaluation mentioned earlier.…”

Ethics of evaluation for socio-ecological transformation: Case-based critical systems analysis of motivation, power, expertise, and legitimacy

“…Critical systems thinking, boundary critique, and critical systems heuristics have been used in the evaluation field (Schwandt and Gates, 2016; Gates, 2018; Schwandt, 2018; Schwandt and Gates, 2021; Williams, 2015) and specifically for Indigenous evaluation (Bowman, 2020; Hepi et al, 2021) and equity-focused developmental evaluation (Reynolds, 2014). Applications importantly point to the centrality of deliberation (Schwandt, 2018).…”