Kaupapa Māori Evaluation in Aotearoa New Zealand

Abstract

Kaupapa Māori evaluation is literally about doing evaluation a Māori (Indigenous peoples of Aotearoa New Zealand) way. While the methods we use are often those from western evaluation practice, our methodology and the paradigm within which we operate are Māori. Our use of these methods enables Māori organizations and communities to meet their accountability requirements for the funding they receive to deliver services and programs to their people and to the wider community. At the same time as we are undertaking these evaluations, we are also encouraging those we work with to increase their own evaluation capacity. Part of this is thinking outside of the western evaluation “square” to incorporate traditional decision‐making ways into how they capture outcomes and improve service delivery. The Kaupapa Māori evaluation journey we describe here is about how we currently practice, and our ambitions for the true decolonization of evaluation.

Strategies to support culturally safe health and wellbeing evaluations in Indigenous settings in Australia and New Zealand: a concept mapping study

“…This study is novel for taking a ground-up participatory approach across two countries to strengthen the evidence base on the practice of culturally safe evaluation. Our findings align with evaluation practitioners’ time-honoured reflections and insights in New Zealand [25] and Australia [26]. These findings additionally align with health promotion principles which are underpinned by an ethos of social justice and with processes that foster empowerment and self-determination to reduce health disparities [27].…”

“…These findings are supported by a Māori “community-up” approach where evaluators “Respect people”, “Meet people face-to-face”, “Look and listen”, “Share, host and be generous”, “Be cautious”. “Do not trample on the dignity or a person” and “Be humble” [25].…”

“…minimum 33% of participants in each activity). The voices of Indigenous evaluation stakeholders, in both countries, signal that Indigenous language matters and further, that future gains in Indigenous evaluation practice require face-to-face consultation [25]. This empirical finding from Australia may apply to First Nation populations in Canada, and Native Americans as these countries share diversity in traditional languages.…”

“…Evaluation must also respect Indigenous peoples’ rights and facilitate their ownership of the evaluation process and of the knowledge generated [36] like, for example, in establishing governance structures so evaluation projects can be discussed at all stages with community. Relational accountability is the cornerstone of Indigenous epistemology; it is therefore critical that evaluation stakeholders build respectful relationships with Indigenous communities in synchronicity with their knowledge systems and values to generate meaningful knowledge on how programs work in Indigenous settings [8, 25].…”

Revisiting decoloniality for more effective research and evaluation

“…Chilisa 2017). Cram and Mertens (2016:178) probably correctly conclude in this regard that '…methodologies must be culturally acceptable at the community level' (see also Chilisa & Tsheko 2014;Chilisa et al 2016;Cram, Pipi & Paipa 2018;Khupe & Keane 2017:33;Mertens, Cram & Chilisa 2013 regarding using diplomatic language to refer to and to describe specific projects and other politically and culturally correct interventions). However, this is not a new ground-breaking observation.…”