Centering Historical Legacy: The Role of Positionality in the Practice of Culturally Responsive Evaluation

Within the practice of evaluation, positionality allows the evaluation scholar-practitioner to clearly state the lens through which they interpret a social world, and in turn live into their professional practice. As culturally responsive equitable evaluators, the authors’ positionality and the practice of reflexivity shape their practice of evaluation in considerable ways. In this article, two Black women independent evaluation consultants explore their positionality in relation to each other, evaluation teams, and evaluation partners. They discuss a reflexive evaluation framework that centers the dignity, value, wellness, and healing of every evaluation team member, and, in turn, asks each team member to extend those same values to professional partners who work alongside them.