Work

Evaluation as Reparation, Reclamation, and Renewal: Reorienting Our Justice Signposts Toward Restorative Validity

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: In this reflexive piece, I consider these questions: How can evaluators reframe validity as a stance and agenda rooted in restoration and healing? How can evaluation contribute more fully to transformative, restorative, and abolitionist signposts such as reparation, reclamation, and renewal? I first review the restorative validity agenda, showing how evaluators can (re)orient their theories and practices toward relationships, justice, and liberation. Drawing on an example of a transformative participatory evaluation in Guatemala, I demonstrate how evaluation can be used to repair (evaluative) harms, renew relationships, and restore and reclaim the humanity of evaluator and evaluated alike. I conclude with a discussion of how our evaluative activities shifted: moving beyond the utilitarianism in punitive, colonial, and carceral logics; understanding how to consider and apply redistributive and reparative justice; and promoting opportunities for evaluator and evaluated to restore and reclaim their cultures-histories-identities-lands.

Source: American Journal of Evaluation

DOI: 10.1177/10982140251350093

Author: Giovanni P. Dazzo

Institution: University of Georgia

Language: English

Topic: Evaluation and Performance Assessment

Subfield: Management Science and Operations Research

Field: Decision Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Peace, justice, and strong institutions

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $3,650