African Evaluation Journal
ISSN: (Online) 2306-5133, (Print) 2310-4988
Page 1 of 10
Original Research
Revisiting decoloniality for more effective
research and evaluation
Authors:
Fanie Cloete1
Christelle Auriacombe1
Affiliations:
1
School of Public
Management, Governance
and Public Policy, University
of Johannesburg,
Johannesburg, South Africa
Corresponding author:
Fanie Cloete,
gsc@sun.ac.za
Dates:
Received: 19 Nov. 2018
Accepted: 08 Mar. 2019
Published: 24 June 2019
How to cite this article:
Cloete, F. & Auriacombe, C.,
2019, ‘Revisiting decoloniality
for more effective research
and evaluation’, African
Evaluation Journal 7(1), a363.
https://doi.org/10.4102/aej.
v7i1.363
Copyright:
© 2019. The Authors.
Licensee: AOSIS. This work
is licensed under the
Creative Commons
Attribution License.
Background: There is increasing global resistance against a perceived Eurocentric value
hegemony in knowledge generation, implementation and evaluation. A persistent colonial
value mindset is accused of imposing outdated and inappropriate policies on former colonised
and other countries and needs to be changed to more appropriate processes and results to
improve conditions in those countries in the 21st century.
Objectives: This article intends to summarise some lessons from the impact of historical
colonial value systems and practices in current knowledge generation, transfer and application
processes and results in Africa (especially in South Africa). The objective is to identify concrete
directions towards ‘decolonising’ research and evaluation processes and products to be more
relevant, appropriate and, therefore, more effective to achieve sustainable empowerment and
other desired developmental outcomes not only in lesser developed countries but also in
traditionally more developed Western nations.
Method: A comparative literature review was undertaken to identify and assess the current
state of the debate on the perceived need to decolonise research and evaluation practices in
different contexts. The Africa-rooted evaluation movement was used as a case study for this
purpose.
Results: The current decoloniality discourse is ineffective and needs to be taken in another
direction. Mainstreaming culturally sensitive and responsive, contextualised participatory
research and evaluation designs and methodology implementation in all facets and at all
stages of research and evaluation projects has the potential to fulfil the requirements and
demands of the research and evaluation decoloniality movement.
Conclusion: This will improve the effectiveness of research and evaluation processes and
results.
Keywords: decoloniality; decolonisation; culturally responsive research; culturally responsive
evaluation; Africa-rooted evaluation.
Introduction
There is increasing global resistance in many circles against a perceived Eurocentric value
hegemony in knowledge generation, implementation and evaluation in many developing
countries. This situation is perceived to impose outdated and inappropriate policies on these
countries and needs to be changed to more appropriate processes and results to improve
conditions in those countries in the 21st century. This article intends to summarise some lessons
from the impact of historical colonial value systems and practices in current knowledge
generation, transfer and application processes and results in Africa (especially in South Africa).
Its objective is to identify concrete directions towards ‘decolonising’ basic research and
evaluation (applied research) processes and products to be more relevant, appropriate and,
therefore, more effective to achieve sustainable empowerment and other desired developmental
outcomes not only in lesser developed countries but also in traditionally more developed
Western nations.
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The article therefore assesses the current state of the debate on the need to decolonise research and
evaluation practices. It starts off with a critical assessment of the nature, focus and scope of the
evolving decoloniality paradigm. It then assesses what needs to be ‘decolonised’ in terms of this
evolving paradigm and concludes with a brief summary of how that should be done in the most
effective and efficient manner that goes beyond different outdated decoloniality discourses to
achieve more appropriate sustainable research and evaluation empowerment outcomes, not only
in different African societies but also in the Global North.
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Cloete (2016) critically assessed the origin and focus of the
Africa-rooted evaluation movement, while Cloete (2018)
assessed the impact of decolonisation on academic capacitybuilding and public policy processes in Africa. This article
expands on the preliminary findings and conclusions in these
two contributions by attempting to answer the following
pertinent questions:
• What is the relationship between decolonisation and
decoloniality?
• How can the need for decoloniality be conceptualised?
• What aspects of prevailing research and evaluationrelated activities need to be ‘decolonised’?
• What lessons can be learnt from the prevailing debates on
these issues in the African context for improved research
and evaluation outcomes in general?
Competing conceptions of
decolonisation and decoloniality
Decolonisation1 implies getting rid of the legacy of
‘colonialism’ or ‘colonisation’. Colonisation is regarded as ‘…a
political and economic relation in which the sovereignty of a
nation or a people rests on the power of another nation, which
makes such nation an empire’ (Maldonado-Torres 2007:243).
This conception of colonisation is also applicable in other cases
of empire-building across the globe. It is generally accepted as
the imposition of the will of one nation on another, normally
through military, political, economic and cultural subjugation.
Maldonado-Torres (2007) distinguishes colonisation further
from coloniality which refers to the values underlying a
colonial power relationship. He regards coloniality as:
…long-standing patterns of power that emerged as a result of
colonialism, but that define culture, labour, intersubjective
relations, and knowledge production well beyond the strict
limits of colonial administrations. Thus, coloniality survives
colonialism. It is maintained alive in books, in the criteria for
academic performance, in cultural patterns, in common sense, in
the self-image of peoples, in aspirations of self, and so many
other aspects of our modern experience. In a way, as modern
subjects we breathe coloniality all the time and everyday. (p. 243)
Maldonado-Torres (2007:243) also regards racial and capitalist
exploitations as the fundamental value-laden elements of
coloniality that underlie and justify colonialism, which is
again another concrete manifestation of coloniality.
Madonado-Torres’s views in this regard are strongly informed
by anti-capitalist underdevelopment and dependency
discourses. However, these discourses identify the negative
impacts of historical colonialist practices on different
continents relatively accurately.
Decolonisation and deracialisation are the two main elements
of decoloniality (Maldonado-Torres 2007:251). MaldonadoTorres (2006) conceptualises decolonisation in the form of the
recent phenomenon of European occupation or colonisation
of Africa and Latin America as:
1.The content of the next two sections comprises more detailed extensions, updates
and revised adaptations of Cloete (2018).
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Original Research
…the dismantling (my emphasis) of relations of power and
conceptions of knowledge that foment the reproduction of racial,
gender, and geo-political hierarchies that came into being or
found new and more powerful forms of expression in the
modern/colonial world. (p. 117).
This conception of decolonisation is useful to start the
assessment of this phenomenon in an African context, but it
is argued as follows that this perspective is too narrow,
reductionist and ideologically driven. It just replaces a
narrow Western Eurocentric bias with an African bias. This
also seems to be the case with decolonisation discourses on
other continents. Mbembe (2016) explains that Eurocentrism:
…attributes truth only to the Western way of knowledge
production. It is a canon that disregards other epistemic
traditions. It is a canon that tries to portray colonialism as a
normal form of social relations between human beings rather
than a system of exploitation and oppression. (p. 32)
This is what Maldonado regards as coloniality, as indicated
above. The decolonisation argument that will be assessed in
this article is that those colonial values and practices that
emanate from European colonial influences and practices in
modern Africa are inappropriate in the current era and
disregard different African identities that are fundamentally
different from European identities. One of the logical
implications of the above arguments is that these recent
historical and still prevailing Eurocentric colonial value
systems and practices therefore allegedly have to be replaced
by indigenous African values and practices that are supposed
to be more appropriate to African conditions, cultures and
societies. This is especially relevant in the knowledge
generation, transfer and application spheres (research,
education and policy implementation). Such a new focus will
allow African nations to break free from an outdated, historical
and colonial hegemony that perpetuates perceptions of
indigenous African inferiority and subordination in an
unequal, institutionalised and discriminatory and racially
based power relationship with more ‘civilised’ or ‘developed’
liberal capitalist Western values and practices. However, this
argument is only partially correct as will be motivated later.
Mbembe (2016:34) also regards ‘“xenophobic” or “Afrophobic”
attacks against fellow Africans’ as an unacceptable
manifestation of Africanisation, while Wa Thiong’o (1981:88)
states very explicitly that, to be legitimate and effective as a
decolonisation tool, Africanisation should be culturally and
educationally focused. In other words, cultural values should
be changed through education. Jansen (2017) identifies an
explicit racial undertone in the Africanisation school of
thought while decolonisation theorists also still accuse former
colonial powers of continuing their racist attitudes towards
their former colonies. This supports Maldonado-Torres’s
pervasive coloniality in contemporary globalised value
systems (Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2017).
Although one can and should further in many cases distinguish indigenous research and evaluation methodologies
from decolonised research and evaluation methodologies
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(Chalmers 2017), there is usually a strong overlap between
these approaches, and for the purposes of this article, this
distinction will not be drawn (Sium, Desai & Ritskes 2012).
The essence of my argument is that for the purposes of this
contribution the two concepts are largely the same.
The prima facie validity of the many negative social,
economic, political and psychological impacts of colonialism
on African and other colonies cannot be denied. Historically,
colonisation was the consequence of wars between globally
or regionally strong and weaker nations or in some cases
more peaceful, political and military occupations of weaker
nations’ lands by stronger powers. In all cases these
takeovers happened involuntarily and against the wishes of
the indigenous populations and established new power
relationships that subjugated the weaker parties to the will
of the stronger party.
The primary purpose of historical colonisation was always
economic imperialism, primarily in the form of resource
extraction from the colonies for the benefit of the coloniser
(UNESCO 1981–2012). During these occupations the
coloniser’s values, policies and practices were enforced on
the indigenous populations in their colonies. Indigenous
languages, cultural, social, economic, political and
administrative practices and political and legal systems were
in most cases replaced by the Eurocentric policies and
practices of the coloniser to facilitate the subjugation and
administration of these colonies, in order to achieve colonial
goals optimally. Colonisation is therefore a normal
exploitative consequence of war, as had been historically
recorded from the earliest civilisations. This does not mean
that it is an acceptable practice, but colonial-type policies and
practices have been enforced throughout history by
conquerors on the conquered from time immemorial: ‘to the
victor the spoils!’ (Fukuyama 2011, 2014).
Globalisation is regarded by some as an example of this
type of ‘occupation of the mind’ (wa Thiong’o 1981). In 2001
the Ugandan Prime Minister stated that globalisation
(Nsibambi 2001):
…is not a value-free, innocent, self-determining process. It is an
international socio-politico-economic and cultural permeation
process facilitated by policies of governments, private corporations, international agencies and civil society organizations. It
essentially seeks to enhance and deploy a country’s (society’s or
organization’s) economic, political, technological, ideological
and military power and influence for competitive domination in
the world. (p. 1)
This perspective is a common one among commentators in
this field (Göymen & Lewis 2015; Ninsin 2012; Wenjing et al.
2012). Globalisation can largely be seen as just the modernday manifestation of colonialism, enabled and facilitated by
the exponential technological development of the current
global information society. The so-called Western or
Eurocentric values, approaches and policies are still further
imposed on and ironically still accepted uncritically by
African countries, largely in the same way as they have been
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Original Research
imposed during colonial times when those European
countries were ruling their African colonies (Boshoff 2009;
Girei 2017). Globalisation has further been legitimised by
international institutions (UNPAN 2002).
Manifestations of colonialism
The longest lasting and most pervasive colonial legacies in
Africa and across the world are probably the following
(Cloete 2018):
• physical colonial boundaries: for example, the political
boundaries that resulted from the scramble for Africa and
from the political separation of India and Pakistan, which
are still in place
• colonial laws and policies: for example, the Roman Dutch,
Arabic, French, Portuguese and English legal systems
and policy approaches and programmes that are still in
operation in former colonies
• colonial official languages: for example, Arabic, English,
French, Spanish, Portuguese and Russian as current
official languages in former colonies
• colonial religions: for example, Catholicism, Protestantism
and Islamic Sunni-ism and Shia-ism as the current major
religious philosophies in African countries
• colonial value systems and practices: for example, Eurocentric
conceptions of democracy, development, capitalism,
socialism, feminism, human, animal and environmental
rights and positivist reductionism.
Many of these colonial legacies still prevail in contemporary
African states and in other former colonies (Basheka 2012;
Nnadozie 2015:197). Pre-occupation or pre-colonial knowledge and value systems that were contradictory to the
colonial way of life were in most cases disrupted, abolished or
changed to comply with the new status quo. This led to the
economic, social, cultural and political imperialist results
mentioned earlier because colonial values and mental models
were introduced in educational institutions and processes, in
most cases as formal substitutes for pre-colonial values and
mental models. They still prevail in many cases today.
Colonialism therefore had a spillover effect on how values,
norms and knowledge in colonised societies were and in most
cases still are today generated, transferred and applied in
those societies to further the interests that the coloniser
identified and prioritised. In this process of changing the
social order and also in order to access the resources in the
colonies, the victorious occupier normally also created policies
as well as the types of public infrastructure in the colonies that
it had been used to in its own country. These changes
‘modernised’ those colonial societies (e.g. by prescribing more
modern procedural and substantive rights-based legal
processes) and also facilitated the resource extraction from
and management of the colony (including roads, basic
services improvement, schools and other public services and
facilities). These policy outputs and services also benefitted
the occupied people in many respects, but in the end they
have to be assessed against the background of the different
negative impacts of occupation or colonisation in general on
those colonised societies (UNPAN 2002).
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The global decolonisation discourse has evolved from an
initial ‘reject and replace’ goal to a ‘damage minimalisation
and improvement’ goal. Many colonial ideas, values policies
and practices seem in many cases to be integral elements of
the current identities not only of African nations but also of
all nations across the world that were subject to some or
other form of occupation or colonisation in their long
histories. The successive waves of colonisation of different
African societies over many thousands of years all seem to
have contributed to making contemporary African societies
inherently what they are today, both in a negative and a
positive manner. Mazrui spoke about the ‘triple heritage’ of
African identity, namely African, Islamic and Western, as
Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2015:211) explains.
The durability of coloniality in the mindsets of both former
colonial powers and their former colonies has proved that a
‘reject and replace’ approach to decoloniality by just replacing
selected colonial legacies with allegedly indigenous values,
traditions and practices is not as simple and straightforward
as one might think. Over time this rigid decolonisation
approach evolved into a more realistic ‘damage minimalisation
and improvement’ approach where the focus is now not on
replacing Eurocentric approaches with African ones but to
supplement or contrast these approaches with Africa-based
and Africa-focused mental models that are more congruent
with African value, cultural and empirical situations and
practices (see also Jansen 2017). These views acknowledge
the validity of Western thought and science but advocate
their supplementation or comparison with indigenous
African thought and ideas where relevant and applicable.
Examples include the use of ideas of early African scholars
who emphasise the African living experience rather than the
clinical separation of ideas and bodies of knowledge from the
creators of those ideas and the contexts within which these
ideas were born.
From this perspective, the second wave of decolonisation
writings focus on a more explicit inclusion of indigenous
African value systems to supplement to some extent the gaps
and weaknesses in this regard in reductionist Western
thought. These values include ubuntu,2 deliberative
democracy instead of multiparty representative or
participatory democracy, and the addition of indigenous
African values and knowledge systems (e.g. some elements
of herbal medicine exemplified by sangomas or shamans,
witch doctors and other indigenous knowledge specialists).
Kahiga (2012) also motivates in detail the relevance of Karl
Popper for African Renaissance thought.
However, both of these schools of decolonisation thought are
still caught up in the modernist and reductionist paradigm
that just adds another perspective that is supposed to be
more appropriate in the African context. It assumes picking
elements from either a Eurocentric or a Western (or perhaps
an eastern) origin to fit specific needs. The current
2.Metz (2014:312) defines ubuntu as: ‘a person is a person through other persons’ or
‘…a prescription to become a real person (to develop one’s humanness) by prizing
friendly relationships with those who must be treated with respect in virtue of their
capacity for them’.
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decolonisation discourse does not seem to resolve potential
conflicts among these different competing value systems or
practices that might now co-exist side by side in one country.
It still demands a choice between one and another approach,
thereby building up potential internal inconsistencies in
African systems, because of potentially incompatible values
and practices. In 2014 the then President of South Africa, Mr
Jacob Zuma, was for example reported to have stated in an
official court submission that corruption is ‘a Western
concept’ (News-24 2014). Other examples of this dilemma are
provided later in this article.
It is further an open question whether one can identify
concrete ‘Eurocentrism’ or ‘Western values’ as coherent bodies
of knowledge (Harrison 2018; Pellegrini 2017). Sen (1997) and
Bruun and Jacobsen (2000) are also sceptical about ‘Asian
values’, although Russon (2008) identified elements of an
‘Eastern’ evaluation model. This model, however, does not
differ fundamentally from the application by different
individuals of current evaluation approaches in Western
countries. The differences that he identifies are not generic
differences with ‘Western’ evaluators. Similarly, the existence
of a coherent set of ‘African Values’ that is uniquely African
and does not exist on other continents can be questioned (see
Brown 2013). Anoba (2017) argues for example that individual
liberal values are also integral values in African communities
while Metz (2014) argues that the spirit of ‘ubuntu’ permeates
the generally accepted liberal 1996 Constitution of South
Africa. The African Union (AU) has further adopted a range of
legally binding charters and conventions on inter alia human
and peoples’ rights, participation, children’s rights, culture
and democracy that do not differ significantly from prevailing
‘Western’ policies on these topics (AU 2017). Concepts like
‘Western, Asian and African values’ therefore still seem in
many cases to be vague, non-scientific generalisations that are
not always helpful in academic discourses because the
evidence base to link them to concrete continent-wide contexts
and illustrations are frequently too weak. One must distinguish
among different, diverse African country and value contexts,
as is the case too in the West or in Asia.
As already concluded above, both ‘decolonisation’ and
‘decoloniality’ therefore seem to be inappropriate concepts
for future use because they are as narrow, reductionist and
ideologically driven as the colonial legacies that they criticise.
It seems more constructive to move beyond the Eurocentric–
African dichotomy and to develop new, integrated and more
holistic mental models for purposes of description,
explanation and prediction. These new models of thinking can
then very effectively supersede the current, still modernist,
reductionist, conflict-driven and problem identificationfocused approaches inherent in the dichotomy of the socalled Western and African models of thinking.
The development of post-modern, post-positivist knowledge
generation approaches in Western thinking was a direct
consequence of the negative impacts of overly reductionist
thinking in Western thought that was so narrowly focused on
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identifying individual trees that it missed the nature of the
forest itself. This emerging sensitivity of Western social
scientists to a more integrated and holistic open systems
approach to societal phenomena that comprises more than
the sum of the different constituent parts of the system
developed into the fast-emerging and consolidating
complexity thinking paradigm that explains the different
types of interaction among systems variables more coherently.
Complexity thinking also provides a more coherent
explanation and legitimation of the more holistic approach to
African life that is inherent in many indigenous African and
even Asian philosophies (OECD 2017).
The fundamental scientific principles according to which
mathematical systems, physics, chemistry, psychology,
sociology, politics, economics and management work, what
variables can influence these systems and how this occurs are
universal. Mazrui’s thoughts on this issue are an excellent
example (Mamdani 2017; Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2015). The way
these processes play out in different empirical contexts,
however, can be different because of different contextual
conditions and variables that impact societies or environments
in different ways (Cloete & Mmakola 2018). Public policy
conditions and environments in more advanced and
developed states in North America and Northern Europe are
different from those environments in lesser developed states
in Asia and Africa. This necessitates different policy
approaches and strategies that are more appropriate in
certain situations than in other situations.
The issue is not that European practices of democracy,
capitalism, socialism, feminism, liberalism or other value
systems are ‘foreign’ to Africa and should therefore be
dropped in principle in favour of indigenous African
practices that are more suitable to African conditions. As
indicated above, current African identities comprise various
permutations or mixtures and fusions of different historical
influences on those societies over long periods. The drop and
replace solution has been largely ineffective in the past.
Jansen (2017) states this position very forcefully:
To insist on an African versus European … (knowledge) … in the
age of globalisation is naïve. Our knowledges are integrated both
at the level of knowledge as well as in the hands of knowledge
workers. Our leading intellectuals stand with their feet in many
worlds, travelling across borders and collaborating with their
colleagues in Asia, Latin America and the large, very diverse
‘West’. The insistence on a ‘them vs us’ dichotomy this side of
colonial rule is anachronistic and unhelpful for those who
actually do research and writing across the world. (p. 113)
Mamdani (2017) echoes these sentiments of Jansen. Furthermore,
the issue is not just what elements of African value systems and
practices should be added to prevailing colonial-type legacy
systems in specific African, Asian or other contexts if one wants
to implement them together in the most efficient and effective
manner. This approach can also potentially create further
cognitive dissonance and other contradictions in complex
African societies. The questions of what should be decolonised
and how should it be done still remain.
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Decolonisation of research and
evaluation
The most constructive approach to the decolonisation of
research and evaluation seems to be to follow more concrete,
pragmatic, scientific, generic evidence-based approaches that
can just be applied in slightly different ways in different
contexts to achieve the most efficient and effective results
(Chilisa 2017; Nabudere 2007). Nakhooda (2017) concludes in
this regard that:
…(w)hen it relates to science and technology, … the
decolonisation space appears murkier, and experts have trod
carefully. The whole value of science lies in the search for, and
validation of truths in the universe. Is it possible then, to
decolonise truths? Should indigenous knowledge … presents an
alternate view to colonial knowledge? Is science even considered
‘colonised knowledge’internet source? (n.p.)
Chilisa and Malunga (2012) state that there is a need for two
main African transformations of current Western research or
evaluation cultures and practices. The first is decolonising
and indigenising evaluation to recognise the adaptation of
the accumulated Western theory and practice on evaluation
to serve the needs of Africans better. The second is the
development of a relational evaluation branch (that) draws
from the concept of ‘wellness’ as personified in African
greetings and the southern African concept of ‘I am because
we are’. The wellness reflected in the relationship between
people extends also to non-living things, emphasising that
evaluation from an African perspective should include a
holistic approach that links an intervention to the
sustainability of the ecosystem and environment around it.
Expansions of and elaboration on these views, both within an
African and other indigenous contexts, are inter alia also
available in Chilisa (2012), Chilisa et al. (2016), Ofir (2013),
Cloete, Rabie and De Coning (2014:56–60), Maat and Carroll
(2012), Botha (2011), LaFrance and Nichols (2010) and also in
Gaotlhobogwe et al. (2018). If this need is valid, the next
question is, What does it mean in practice for research and
evaluation?
Answers to the following questions might provide some
clarity about what an appropriate strategy for decolonisation
of research and evaluation within an African context could
be, if a need for such decolonisation is evident3:
• Is it possible to identify Western, African, Asian and for
that matter Latin-Caribbean research and evaluation
attributes that differ fundamentally?
• If so, what, if anything, should change in the prevailing
Western research and evaluation cultures and practices
for and in the African context?
At the moment there are no clear-cut answers to these questions.
We suggest that one would be able to consider the answers to
these questions from a better perspective by distinguishing
systematically the possible differences between a ‘Western’ and
3.The content of this section comprises largely revised adaptations from Cloete (2016).
See also Ratele et al. (2018) for a similar approach to decolonising psychology.
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a more appropriate ‘African’ approach in the following specific
research and evaluation activities (see Figure 1)4:
These authors’ interpretation of Figure 1 is that cultural and
other values, assumptions and world views can and do differ
from one context to another. If such differences exist (e.g. in the
form of distinct indigenous values, beliefs and practices), they
should be acknowledged and incorporated in the research/
evaluation design, methodology and implementation. This is
probably uncontested. However, it does not seem as if the foci,
purposes, data collection, analysis, use, regulatory frameworks
and capacity-building approaches in Western research/
evaluation practice are necessarily in principle different from
other indigenous cultural, economic or political contexts in
Africa or on other continents. They depend on what the
commissioning agency wants and what are the most
appropriate and effective strategies in specific settings and
conditions (see Katz et al. 2016).
It could be that a research or evaluation project commissioned
from a Western donor might focus more on gaining empirical
knowledge of and insights into the degree of democratic
transparency and accountability in the implementation of a
development project in Africa or in another developing context
financed by such donor, than on what the developmental
empowerment impact of the programme is. On the other hand,
research and evaluation of the same programme commissioned
by the regulating authority of the African village concerned
might prefer to focus more on empowerment outcomes than
on the efficiency and productivity of the project team.
Western/ Africa Research and Evalua on Issues
Implementaon and use
Planning and design
Stage
Issue
Issue descripon
Research/ evaluaon Accountability, effecveness, responsiveness,
development, sustainability, resilience,
values and
empowerment, holism, dignity, ubuntu?
assumpons
Research/ evaluaon Improvement in life quality/ happiness,
impact, empowerment, equity, jusce,
purpose and focus
rights, parcipaon?
Research/ evaluaon Quantave/ qualitave/ mixed, scienfic
validity, bias towards the stascal
design
counterfactual and RCTs, human relaonships?
Data collecon
Rigorous stascal sampling, culturally
sensive parcipatory processes,
indigenous knowledge?
Data analysis
Rigorous quantave and qualitave
analyses, causal aribuon, programme
contribuon, SDGs, indicators?
Data presentaon
and communicaon
Wrien/ oral/ visual, tradional and
social media, other communicaon channels?
Research/
evaluaon use
Educaon, improvement, accountability,
empowerment, Improvement, accountability,
self-confidence, dignity?
Research/ evaluaon Experimentaon, context-sensive
policy and regulatory customisaon?
frameworks
Research/ evaluaon Generic M&E educaon, training, mentorship,
internships, context-sensive content
capacity-building
and facilitaon?
Source: Adapted from Cloete, F., 2016, ‘Developing an Africa-rooted programme evaluation
approach’, African Journal of Public Affairs 9(4), 65–66
FIGURE 1: Western and African research and evaluation issues.
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These choices about what to research or evaluate are
pragmatic ones that are not necessarily predetermined by a
specific ideological, religious, philosophical or other mindset.
But it can be argued from a decoloniality perspective that in
all research and evaluations projects, instrumental purposes
and foci (e.g. only on activities and outputs) are in principle
less important than summative purposes focussing primarily
on the extent to which programme outcomes and impacts
have promoted prevailing indigenous values, beliefs and
cultures. Western-type emphases on secular, positivistic or
other theory-driven goal achievement might be in conflict
with indigenous research or evaluation goals that are more
participatory, relational and context-specific.
According to Cram (2018:130), decolonisation is ‘…a
systematic way of research and evaluation that attempts to
liberate the colonized mind so that formally colonized people
are not only politically emancipated, but also mentally
emancipated’. The decoloniality solution to this issue
is therefore probably just to devise and implement more
context-sensitive, responsive, representative and participatory research or evaluation design, methodological
implementation and reporting approaches and strategies,
devised and executed in a joint, participatory manner in
order to maximise in the best possible way achievement of
the research or evaluation purpose(s) (e.g. 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. Selecting and
applying the most appropriate methodologies to achieve the
most valid and accurate research or evaluation results are
integral elements of qualitative research and evaluation
strategies (Zavala 2013). In the evaluation field, such skills
have become known as ‘culturally competent, appropriate or
responsive evaluation’ approaches (Gaotlhobogwe et al.
2018:51; Gervin 2012; Pon 2009; Waapalaneexkweew [Bowman,
Mohican/Lunaape] & Dodge-Francis 2018). They include
awareness, tolerance, responsiveness and explicit incorporation
of stakeholder values, beliefs, practices, goals and priorities in
research and evaluation designs, methodologies and
implementation approaches and strategies.
A concrete, practical example of this issue might be the use
of older black men to conduct interviews with tribal leaders in
traditional African contexts because those leaders may take a
dim view of, for example, young white females who are regarded
as total outsiders to their cultural values and practices
4.These issues have emanated from the Bellagio discussions so far (Bellagio Report
2013), as well as from other investigations into culturally sensitive evaluations.
I frame them in the form of open-ended questions to be answered or issues to be
clarified rather than definitively different issues that are identified. Kwakami et al.
(2008) and AIHEC (2012) also suggest frameworks for ‘culturally competent’
evaluations that comprise similar elements.
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(see Blake 1993). The style of interviewing in such cases is also
totally different from what normally occurs in Western contexts.
Culturally competent evaluation is, however, also criticised for
its inadequate foci on the summative goals and visions of
minority indigenous populations that are not always
accommodated in mainstream evaluations as a result of the
inherent decoloniality that is still evident in such evaluations
(e.g. Cavino 2013). This can be resolved by applying the generally
accepted principles of good evaluation better in practice. The
Irish Research Council (2016) in collaboration with the Irish
Universities Association produced an interesting report on what
they call an ‘Engaged Research’ approach that they recommend
to their members. This approach seems to address many of the
issues that the decoloniality discourse focusses on, but it goes
beyond such issues to also incorporate sensitive contemporary
topics like feminist approaches to gender relationships. It is an
open question – how appropriate a feminist approach to
evaluation is in a traditional rural setting characterised inter alia
by strong paternalistic domination of females by males.
Cram (2018) poses the following questions to achieve the best
results with this more responsive cultural decoloniality
approach:
Central to identifying what sort of evaluation best suits and
serves Indigenous communities is the responsiveness of that
evaluation: is it good evaluation practice for that Indigenous
group? Does it reflect their values, culture, spirituality,
experience, history, needs, and priorities? Is there a structural
analysis of the societal context (often a colonial context) that the
Indigenous peoples live their day-to-day lives in? (p. 131)
Examples of other specific issues that should be factored into
decolonial research and evaluation approaches include the
principles of an ‘ubuntu’ philosophy of life that many African
cultures share (e.g. Seehawer 2018) and other spiritual life
views among indigenous cultures like the Maori Aboriginal
cultures in New Zealand and Australia, as well as the
respective First Nations in the Americas (e.g. Exley, Whatman
& Singh 2018; Martinez et al. 2018). Gobo (2011), BeemanCadwallader, Quigley and Yazzie-Mintz (2011), Smith (2012),
Lincoln and González (2008) and Katz et al. (2016) also
identified different ranges of customised qualitative research
strategies that can be considered as good practices for these
purposes. Stickl Haugen and Chouinard (2018) propose a
number of concrete evaluation design and implementation
strategies to reduce the unequal power relationships
frequently inherent in culturally responsive evaluations.
Against this background it is difficult to understand and
motivate that research into and evaluation of minority
indigenous colonised communities are in essence totally
different from such research and evaluation projects undertaken
in generally diverse cultural settings that are not normally
associated with colonisation such as Japan, the USA, Thailand
and Denmark. In all these and other different cultural contexts,
research and evaluation interventions in these societies
necessitate a thorough knowledge, understanding and
appropriate responsiveness to possibly different cultural values,
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Original Research
attitudes, practices and languages in different national, regional
or local contexts that might lead to inaccurate results if they are
not properly accommodated in the design and implementation
of the intervention concerned (e.g. Ndimande 2012).
Another important outstanding question is the issue of
conflicting values and practices that was identified earlier in
this article as one of the weaknesses of the latest decolonisation
approach to just soften the negative impacts of colonialism.
Policymakers have to draft policies and legislation to
improve social problems. The question is what should
happen if policymakers do not share a minority indigenous
knowledge paradigm because it is in conflict with prevailing
global or national majority values and practices like global
human rights, women’s rights or generally accepted animal
rights. Social and economic practices like polygamy, child
marriages, female foetus abortions, female genital mutilation,
bribery and nepotism are more acceptable in some cultures
than in others. Does a decoloniality mindset have to accept
such actions in principle or in practice as legitimate
mainstream policy practices? What difference should a new
decolonised research and evaluation paradigm make in
practice? Norms and standards and the values that they are
based on are all inherently subjective, and the question is to
what extent the conclusions and recommendations of a
research or evaluation project should be focussed on
changing such norms, standards, values and practices
underlying the above examples that are generally in conflict
with liberal, democratic, legal and policy systems.
An important economic illustration of this dilemma relates to
the popular practice in many developing societies that tribal
land is kept in trust by a traditional leader who then just
allocates at his or her discretion portions of land to subjects
for their use without them gaining private ownership of
those pieces of land. Evidence indicates that private
ownership of land is an important developmental strategy
and should be encouraged (Weaver, Rock & Kusterer 1997:65).
Should an evaluation of the effectiveness and efficiency of
land tenure as a development tool be responsive to the
traditional culture and practice in this regard and recommend
retention of the current traditional practice contrary to
overwhelming existing evidence? This is the dilemma that
community developers face everywhere: Principles and
strategies of sustainable development are in many cases in
conflict with especially traditional community practices.
Cram (2018) highlights the complexity of these types of issues
by suggesting that evaluators should:
…actively seek the support, advice, and feedback of tribal
members throughout evaluations in tribal contexts. This helps
ensure the responsiveness of the evaluation but is only possible
if evaluators can adapt their practice in response to feedback as
they progress through an evaluation … it should not be taken for
granted that tribal members can support evaluations without
payment, and appropriate compensation for tribal involvement
and collaboration for the entire evaluation should be factored
into evaluation budgets. (pp. 128–129)
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On the other hand, the issue of compensation for respondents
is for very good reasons a highly controversial research and
evaluation practice and is generally discouraged in Western
approaches.
Different standards for scientific validity can further not be
entertained in different cultures. General scientific validity of
research and evaluation should never be compromised.
However, the question is whether this statement is also not
subject to criticism as a coloniality mindset as Gone (2018:11)
experienced (Windchief et al. 2017) with regard to validity
comparisons between written and oral historical data and
narratives in North American indigenous cultures. The
question is to what extent does the need for decoloniality of
research and evaluation mindsets justify a relaxation of the
rigour of Western research and evaluation methodologies?
The (Western?) jury is still out on most of these issues.
Conclusions
The current decoloniality discourse is largely rhetorical,
negative and ineffective. Both the drop-and-replace and the
amelioration-and-mitigation approaches in the decolonisation
or decoloniality discourses are outdated and sterile relics of
the past. They are both as stuck in the modernist colonial
mindset as colonialism itself. However, there is clearly a need
to address the conscious or subconscious colonial
(superiority? racist?) mindsets that might still be prevailing
in many cases in the research and evaluation fields.
Unfortunately, the current decoloniality discourse does not
provide concrete guidelines about what to change and how
to do it, except for identifying a vague, general need for
change. This is inadequate.
One of the best examples of a decoloniality case study is the
current Africa-rooted Research and Evaluation movement.
This article analysed and critically assessed the generally
accepted need to do this, and how to go about it where such
a need is found to exist. Watertight distinctions between
Eurocentric, Africa-centric and other possible parochial
cultural approaches to research and evaluation do not always
exist because the physical, economic, political, social,
intellectual and psychological consequences of colonialism
have been as thoroughly infused over time in those colonial
societies as the effects of the holocaust, apartheid,
globalisation and other historical events have been hardwired
in the minds and psyches of everyone involved in those
events. It is very difficult and in some cases even impossible
to disentangle, neutralise or remove these effects because
they just contribute to the combined effect of many historical
forces that shape individual and collective identities.
A more relevant, re-focused, positive, pragmatic, resilient
and integrative approach to problems of decoloniality is
required to improve the potential impacts of research and
evaluation on societal change. The development of
transformative, trans-disciplinary, developmental, culturally
and context specific and sensitive, mixed research and
evaluation approaches, designs and methods are emerging
good practices in the right direction.
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Original Research
It seems as if mainstreaming appropriate culturally
sensitive and responsive participatory research and
evaluation designs and methodology implementation in all
facets and at all stages of research and evaluation projects
has the potential to fulfil the requirements and demands of
the research and evaluation decoloniality movement.
However, the underlying normative or value base of many
research and evaluation decisions inevitably forces
researchers and evaluators to take normative or value-laden
decisions. Some of these decisions will probably be contrary
to indigenous values and practices.
The purpose of the evaluation informs its design and
methodologies and the manner in which they are implemented.
Appropriate research and evaluation designs and methodologies
should as far as possible include context-responsive and
sensitive indigenous knowledge practices and values if they are
compatible with the research and evaluation purpose, design
and methodologies, in order to maximise success.
Acknowledgements
Competing interests
The authors declare that they have no financial or personal
relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them
in writing this article.
Authors’ contributions
F.C. contributed 80% and C.A. contributed 20% to the writing
of this article.
Ethical consideration
This article followed all ethical standards for a research
without direct contact with human or animal subjects.
Funding
This study was funded by the authors themselves.
Data availability statement
Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data
were created or analysed in this study.
Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of
the authors and do not reflect the views or official position of
any other source, institution or funder, unless explicitly
otherwise indicated in the text.
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