Indigenous Feminist Evaluation Methods: A Case Study in "My Two Aunties"

The Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Shelbi Nahwilet Meissner

Jeremy Braithwaite, Karan Thorne, Art Martinez, Elizabeth Lycett

Fri, 12/08/2023 - 12:00

Shelbi Nahwilet Meissner publishes new article in The Canadian Journal of Program Evaluation

This paper offers some key characteristics of Indigenous feminist approaches to evaluation and spotlights a unique and promising example of Indigenous feminist evaluation methods in the My Two Aunties (M2A) program. Though Indigenous feminist evaluation methods are diverse, complex, and community-specific, some general characteristics we point to in this analysis are commitments to anti-colonial conceptions of family, gender, and belonging, an assertion of the epistemic and evaluative importance of felt knowledge, the explicit confrontation of settler colonialism’s impact on Indigenous life, and the commitment to the transformative potential of community-led caretaking. We then turn to what we see as an exemplar of Indigenous feminist evaluation methods—the evaluation component of the My Two Aunties (M2A) program. Our paper will provide theoretical scaffolding for Indigenous feminist evaluation and add to the growing body of Indigenous scholarship that challenges what “counts” as evidence in settler scholarship arenas.

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