Why is evaluation so white?

Vidhya Shanker, PhD, and Carolina De La Rosa Mateo, MPH, representing the MN BIPOC in Evaluation Community of Praxis, turn the question of "Why are there so few evaluators of color?" on its head by asking instead, "Why is evaluation so white?” Vidhya answers: "Because the labor of women of color and indigenous women in evaluation has been erased."  

In this webinar, Vidhya will explain how the field of evaluation historically has approached racialized differences, as well as what we can do to prevent it from continuing to produce inequities.

Vidhya and her co-presenter Carolina will explore the promise of investments in generative networks for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) evaluators for increasing the flow of capital within and between BIPOC communities and white-led or -bred nonprofits, foundations, and government agencies. They will demonstrate the idea's promise through one such network that has developed in the Twin Cities. 

Presenters
Vidhya Shanker has a Ph.D. in Evaluation Studies from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities and 25 years of experience working independently, with large institutions, and with grassroots organizations in the USA and internationally at the intersections of globalized capitalism, racialized poverty, and gender-based violence. She has particular interest in evaluation as a vehicle for critical inquiry and reflective praxis within social movement organizing by people of color and indigenous people. Her dissertation research examined the construction of race in and through evaluation.

Carolina De La Rosa Mateo (she/her/hers) recently earned a Master’s in Public Health from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. Her professional interests are primarily around community health promotion, evaluation, disability advocacy, and advancing racial equity. She is a graduate of the Graduate Education Diversity Internship (GEDI) program, which prompted her to think more about why evaluation is “so white” and how Indigenous, Black, and Evaluators of Color can work together to build power and change the status quo about how evaluations are conducted.