‘If they can't do any good, they shouldn't come’: northern evaluators in southern realities

Abstract

Based on research and evaluation experiences from Sri Lanka, Malawi, Sudan and Pakistan, this paper reflects on critical implications of ethics at local level. Providing various examples, the paper invites the reader to think through solutions to their own questions and challenges in the realm of evaluation ethics. Further, this paper examines the ethics of evaluation through the lens of the author's own experiences as a researcher and evaluator, which is shaped by his particular positionality and by what he has learnt working in the space within and between the European university system and violently divided communities. From this standpoint, this paper has managed to distinguish some of the central challenges to evaluators working in violently divided communities.

Keywords:

• ethics
• evaluation
• conflict zones
• communities
• morals
• conflicts
• disasters
• cultural humility
• research methods

Notes

^*This paper draws some of its reflections from research undertaken by J. Jayawickrama, J and J. Strecker in the context of a larger research project with INCORE and IDRC, between 2012 and 2013.

¹ It is important to note that the real distinction is one of paradigms of inquiry and the fact that one paradigm (generally more positivist and scientific) is the dominant tradition in academic practice in the global North and South. However, there are exceptions — appreciative enquiry, for example is the polar opposite of what I am describing in my critique of what knowledge is valued and ‘ways of knowing’.

² Franz Fanon (Fanon, 1967) and Edward W. Said (Said, 2003) on the theoretical and multi-disciplinary nature of post-colonial theory.

³ Elderly person from Peshawar, Pakistan, personal discussion with the author, August 1998.

⁴ A farmer from conflict-affected eastern Sri Lanka, direct discussion with the author, October 2005.

⁵ Community leader from El-Geneina, western Darfur, Sudan, direct discussion with the author, May 2005.

⁶ A Rwandan theology professor and refugee, Lilongwe, Malawi, direct discussion with the author, August 2006.

⁷ This leads to a question that is different from the question posed by the researchers: are all Sri Lankans traumatised?

⁸ Adapted from Morris (2007).