CATEGORISATION OF ARTICLES
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Theoretical Foundations explores the ideas, values, and principles that underpin Indigenous evaluation, including sovereignty, relational accountability, and culturally grounded ways of understanding knowledge, evidence, and success.
Methodologies & Frameworks presents Indigenous approaches, models, and tools that guide how evaluation is designed and conducted, grounded in cultural protocols, relationships, and community knowledge systems. Practice & Application showcases real-world evaluations and programmes, illustrating how Indigenous approaches are applied in practice to support community priorities, strengthen outcomes, and inform decision-making. |
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Shaun Akroyd (2023) presents a kaupapa Māori multimethod evaluation of the Huringa Pai health initiative, combining intervention logic with culturally grounded methods to identify key factors supporting whānau wellbeing and effective, community-led approaches to improving hauora. Practice & Application 🟢
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Douglas Asante and Thomas Archibald (2023) propose Nnoboa and Sankofa as Ghanaian Indigenous evaluation frameworks, extending Made in Africa Evaluation by centring communal collaboration, non-linear time, and culturally grounded epistemologies to challenge Eurocentric evaluation approaches. Theoretical Foundations
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Sharon Attipoe-Dorcoo and Katie Boone (2023) foreground the inner work of evaluators, drawing on Indigenous teachings, ancestry, and the Medicine Wheel to show how reflection, healing, and ways of being shape ethical practice, relational accountability, and systems transformation. Theoretical Foundations - Practice & Application
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Jodie Bailie, Veronica Matthews, Alison Frances Laycock and colleagues (2024) critically reflect on evaluating an Indigenous health research collaboration using the Quality Appraisal Tool, highlighting strengths in adaptability and collaboration while identifying the need for stronger Indigenous leadership, governance, and paradigmatic alignment. Methodologies & Frameworks - Practice & Application
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Maria Baker, Kataraina Pipi and Terri Cassidy (2015) present a Kaupapa Māori action research evaluation within a Whānau Ora (Māori family wellness) collective, demonstrating how relational methods, tikanga (protocol), and whānau (family)-centred approaches support service transformation and improved wellbeing outcomes. Practice & Application 🟢
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Be’sha Blondin, Maria Cherba, Kaila de Boer, Meghan Etter, Gwen Healey Akearok, Sidney Horlick, Nicole Redvers, Laurie Russell, Jimmy Ruttan and Taha Tabish (2021) describe a consensus-based process to co-develop an Indigenous evaluation tool for land-based mental wellness programmes. Methodologies & Frameworks 🟢
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Erica Blue Roberts, James Butler III, and Kerry Green (2016) explore how AI/AN programme staff understand Indigenous evaluation in physical activity programmes, emphasising holistic, narrative approaches, variability across contexts, and the importance of culturally grounded, community-defined evaluation practices. Practice & Application 🟢
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Eugene Boadu (2023) examines Indigenous knowledge systems and evaluation in African contexts, highlighting how local epistemologies, proverbs, and community governance practices inform culturally grounded, participatory approaches to development, accountability, and collective wellbeing. Theoretical Foundations - Practice & Application 🟢
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Nicole Bowman (Lunaape/Mohican) (2025) shares the Seven Directions Medicine Wheel as an Indigenous evaluation framework, illustrating how relationality, balance, and community-defined values guide evaluation practice, learning, and accountability across diverse Indigenous contexts. Methodologies & Frameworks 🟢
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Nicole Bowman (2020) introduces a Nation-to-Nation (N2N) evaluation model grounded in Tribal sovereignty and Tribal Critical Theory, demonstrating how systems and governance evaluations can be reframed to respect Indigenous legal, political, and cultural relationships. Methodologies & Frameworks
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Nicole Bowman (Lunaape/Mohican) and Larry Bremner (Métis) (2025) examine Indigenous Data Sovereignty in evaluation, outlining how data should be governed by Indigenous peoples and applied “by, with, for, and through” communities to uphold rights, relationships, and accountability. Theoretical Foundations 🟢
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Waapalaneexkweew (Nicky Bowman) and Carolee Dodge-Francis (2018) examine Indigenous and tribal evaluation, emphasising sovereignty, nationhood, and community-defined values, and showing how Indigenous control of evaluation processes challenges dominant paradigms and supports self-determined evaluation practice. Theoretical Foundations 🟢
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Larry Bremner (2019) examines the role of evaluation in truth and reconciliation, challenging evaluators to reconsider storytelling, centre Indigenous voices, and support self-determination, relationality, and holistic approaches that move beyond colonial assumptions and practices. Theoretical Foundations 🟢
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Amber Campbell and colleagues (2024) examine how sense of purpose and conscientiousness relate to health and wellbeing among Indigenous and low-income communities in Vancouver, finding purpose strongly linked to better outcomes alongside social determinants. Theoretical Foundations - Practice & Application 🟢
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Otto Campion (2023) examines monitoring and evaluation in Indigenous land and sea management, demonstrating how governance, knowledge systems, and indicators grounded in Country support environmental stewardship, cultural continuity, and community-defined measures of success. Practice & Application 🟢
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Margaret Cargo and colleagues (2019) examine culturally responsive evaluation in Indigenous health contexts, emphasising participation, cultural safety, and community engagement, while highlighting tensions with dominant paradigms and the need for approaches that better align with Indigenous priorities and realities. Theoretical Foundations - Methodologies & Frameworks 🟢
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By, with and for Māori evaluation
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Teah Carlson, Helen Moewaka Barnes and Tim McCreanor (2017) examine a kaupapa Māori evaluation of a health literacy intervention, highlighting collaboration, co-ownership, and community-defined success, while exploring tensions between research aims and community priorities in practice. Practice & Application
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Rashmi Chandna, Kelley S. Widner, and colleagues (2023) synthesise Indigenous evaluation literature, mapping core principles, relational approaches, and methodological considerations, and highlighting the centrality of Indigenous knowledge, community leadership, and context in shaping ethical and meaningful evaluation practice. Theoretical Foundations - Methodologies & Frameworks 🟢
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Gretchen Clarke, Elizabeth Douglas, Marnie House, Kristen Hudgins, Sofia Campos and Elizabeth Vaughn (2022) describe a culturally responsive, participatory evaluation of a U.S. Indigenous ageing programme, highlighting stakeholder engagement, storytelling, capacity building, and practical strategies for culturally grounded evaluation practice. Practice & Application 🟢
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Fiona Cram and Donna M. Mertens (2016) explore the relationship between Indigenous and transformative evaluation paradigms, examining shared commitments to social justice alongside tensions around sovereignty, and arguing for dialogue that centres Indigenous self-determination, relational worldviews, and decolonisation within evaluation theory and practice. Theoretical Foundations 🟢
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Fiona Cram, Tanya Samu, Reremoana Theodore, and Rachael Trotman (2020) present findings from a longitudinal study exploring how Māori whānau define success, highlighting collective wellbeing, relationships, and aspirations, and emphasising evaluation approaches grounded in whānau-centred, culturally anchored understandings. Practice & Application 🟢
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Fiona Cram, Min Vette, Moira Wilson, Rhema Vaithianathan, Tim Maloney and Sarah Baird (2018) use a “He Awa Whiria” braided rivers approach to interpret Family Start evaluation findings, integrating Māori and Western knowledge systems to better understand outcomes for whānau (Māori families). Methodologies & Frameworks
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Nadezhda Dedyukina and colleagues (2023) present a process evaluation of an Arctic cooking circle programme, developing the Mukluk logic model to reflect Indigenous knowledge, community relationships, and culturally grounded wellbeing outcomes, demonstrating how participatory approaches strengthen programme design and evaluation practice. Methodologies & Frameworks 🟢
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Debbie DeLancey (2023) critiques Western evaluation approaches applied to Indigenous land-based programmes, arguing they are often inappropriate and advocating for Indigenous-led evaluation grounded in sovereignty, land relationships, and community-defined knowledge, drawing on insights from the LANDBACK movement. Theoretical Foundations
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Carolee Dodge Francis and Nicky Bowman (2023) weave the Seven Grandfather Teachings into culturally responsive and Indigenous evaluation, centring kinship, intergenerational responsibility, and relational accountability while challenging Western paradigms and advancing transformative, community-grounded evaluation practice. Theoretical Foundations - Methodologies & Frameworks
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Michelle Firestone and colleagues (2023) outline Indigenous health service evaluation principles developed through a provincial “three ribbon” panel, emphasising self-determination, cultural safety, and relational accountability, and offering practical guidance for embedding Indigenous governance and values within health evaluation systems. Practice & Application 🟢
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Ruby Gibson (2023) examines the Somatic Archaeology Model, an Indigenous, earth-centred healing approach, presenting evaluation findings that show improvements in wellbeing, relationships, and cultural connection through ceremony, somatic practice, and community-based learning. Practice & Application
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Debbie Goodwin, Pale Sauni, and Louise Were (2015) explore cultural competency and “cultural fit” in evaluation, emphasising reflective practice, relational understanding, and Indigenous leadership as essential to bridging cultural divides and improving outcomes in cross-cultural contexts. Theoretical Foundations - Methodologies & Frameworks - Practice & Application 🟢
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Di Grennell and Fiona Cram (2008) evaluate the Amokura whānau violence prevention strategy, highlighting iwi-led, community-wide approaches grounded in whānau oranga, collective responsibility, and Kaupapa Māori principles, and demonstrating how evaluation supports complex, relational, and strengths-based social change initiatives. Methodologies & Frameworks 🟢
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Jane Grover (2010) explores challenges Indigenous organisations face applying Indigenous evaluation within mainstream funding systems, highlighting tensions around accountability, flexibility, and sovereignty, and calling for structural change in commissioning and evaluation practice. Methodologies & Frameworks - Practice & Application
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Maria Hepi and colleagues (2021) explore how Kaupapa Māori evaluation can enhance cross-cultural evaluation practice, outlining principles grounded in tikanga, relational accountability, and Māori worldviews, and demonstrating how these approaches can reshape mainstream evaluation to better support Indigenous aspirations and outcomes. Theoretical Foundations 🟢
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Katie Johnston-Goodstar (2012) argues that decolonizing evaluation requires centring Indigenous worldviews and participation, highlighting evaluation advisory groups as a practical mechanism to ensure relevance, relational accountability, and community ownership of evaluation processes and outcomes. Methodologies & Frameworks 🟢
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Alice Kawakami and colleagues (2007) explore the challenges Indigenous organisations face applying Indigenous evaluation within mainstream funding systems, highlighting tensions around accountability, flexibility, and sovereignty, and calling for structural change in commissioning and evaluation practice. Theoretical Foundations
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Spirituality in evaluation
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Vivienne Kennedy, Fiona Cram, Kirimatao Paipa, Kataraina Pipi, and Maria Baker (2015) explore wairua (spirituality) in evaluation, articulating Māori principles including aroha (compassion), manaaki (care), and mauri (life spirit), and demonstrating how spirituality, relationships, and tikanga (protocol) shape ethical, relational, and culturally grounded evaluation practice. Theoretical Foundations
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Joan LaFrance, Karen Kirkhart, and Richard Nichols (2019) position Indigenous evaluation as a values-driven practice grounded in sovereignty, relational accountability, and cultural knowledge, advancing approaches that centre Indigenous priorities, ethics, and ways of knowing in evaluation design and use. Theoretical Foundations - Methodologies & Frameworks
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Joan LaFrance and Richard Nicols (2010) outline an Indigenous evaluation framework grounded in community values, place, and sovereignty, emphasising relational processes, cultural protocols, and redefining evaluation as learning, responsibility, and community-defined success. Theoretical Foundations - Methodologies & Frameworks
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Joan LaFrance, Richard Nicols and Karen Kirkhart (2012) argue that culture fundamentally shapes evaluation, positioning context as central rather than peripheral. She emphasises Indigenous worldviews, relational accountability, and culturally grounded methods, reframing evaluation as a practice guided by community knowledge, values, and lived realities. Theoretical Foundations
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Thomas J. Lawrence and Rosalina D. James (2019) describe an Indigenous evaluation framework for Good Health and Wellness in Indian Country, outlining a three-tiered model grounded in community, place, cultural values, and tribal sovereignty to measure public health impact. Methodologies & Frameworks 🟢
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Grace Yeeun Lee and colleagues (2020) present a study protocol for strengthening partnerships with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in health evaluation, emphasising co-design, Indigenous governance, and culturally grounded methods to improve service delivery and align evaluation with community priorities. Practice & Application
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Crystal Locklear, Abigail Echo-Hawk, and colleagues (2023) present an Indigenous evaluation framework for urban American Indian and Alaska Native communities, centring data sovereignty, cultural values, and community-defined success to reclaim narratives and strengthen self-determined evaluation practice. A useful entry point, particularly for those interested in education and community-based evaluation grounded in Indigenous contexts. Methodologies & Frameworks - Practice & Application
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Bobby Lee Maher, Jillian Guthrie, Elizabeth Ann Sturgiss, Margaret Cargo and Raymond Lovett (2021) outline a protocol to define “collective capability” in Indigenist evaluation, emphasising Indigenous-led, participatory approaches that centre community knowledge, agency, and culturally grounded evaluation practice. Methodologies & Frameworks
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Nathaniel Lewis and colleagues (2019) analyse Indigenous community-led evaluation in Canada, showing how governance, cultural values, and local priorities shape evaluation processes, and arguing for approaches that centre Indigenous authority and community-defined measures of success. Theoretical Foundations 🟢
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Raglan Maddox and Melody E. Morton Ninomiya (2025) argue for epistemic justice in research, exposing how colonial systems “whitewash” Indigenous knowledge, and calling for truth-telling, relational accountability, and Indigenous sovereignty to reshape research, policy, and health outcomes. Theoretical Foundations 🟢
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Bridgette Masters-Awatere and Linda Waimarie Nikora (2017) examine how Indigenous worldviews are marginalised in dominant evaluation practice, arguing for Māori-centred approaches that reflect Indigenous values, challenge neoliberal influences, and support culturally grounded programme design and evaluation. Theoretical Foundations 🟢
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Almas Mazigo (2024) advances an African-rooted evaluation approach grounded in Indigenous knowledge, participatory practice, and cultural values, emphasising community ownership, contextual relevance, and the role of local epistemologies in shaping meaningful and accountable evaluation. Methodologies & Frameworks
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Almas Mazigo, Francis Mwaijande, Isaack Nguliki, and Miriam Mkombozi (2024) draw on Swahili proverbs to reframe evaluation as a participatory, people-led practice, emphasising democratic engagement, local knowledge, and culturally grounded approaches to assessing development outcomes and accountability. Practice & Application
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Cheryl Meissner, Lindsay McNamara, and colleagues (2023) present an Indigenous feminist evaluation case study, centring relationships, care, and lived experience, and demonstrating how Indigenous feminist approaches reshape evaluation toward relational accountability, storytelling, and community-defined meaning. Methodologies & Frameworks - Practice & Application
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Amy N. Mendenhall and colleagues (2023) examine implementation of a family-based prevention programme, analysing participation, delivery fidelity, and contextual influences, and highlighting how organisational capacity and community engagement shape effectiveness across diverse service settings. Practice & Application
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Mokgadi Mokgolodi (2019) critiques Western evaluation approaches in African contexts, advocating for Indigenous knowledge systems, community participation, and contextually grounded practice, and highlighting how locally rooted epistemologies can strengthen relevance, ownership, and accountability in evaluation. Theoretical Foundations 🟢
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Paula Morelli and Peter Mataira (2010) introduce Strengths-Enhancing Evaluation Research (SEER), centring Indigenous worldviews, guesthood, and storytelling to build relational, culturally grounded evaluation partnerships that recognise program strengths and support community wellbeing and sustainability. Methodologies & Frameworks
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Melanie Nadeau, Vanessa Tibbitts, Ryan Eagle, and Gretchen Dobervich (2023) describe implementing an Indigenous evaluation framework with Minnesota Tribes, centring cultural values, community-defined success, and relational processes to build trust, capacity, and locally grounded evaluation practice. Methodologies & Frameworks - Practice & Application
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April Nakaima and Sanjeev Sridharan (2023) explore how Hawaiian epistemology can guide evaluation as “decluttering,” emphasising place, relationships, identity, and complexity, and arguing for more contextual, relational, and culturally grounded approaches that challenge standardised, externally imposed evaluation models. Methodologies & Frameworks 🟢
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John T. Njovu (2020) reflects on Indigenous evaluation practice during COVID-19 in Zambia, highlighting relational responsibilities, community obligations, and systemic inequities faced by local evaluators, including donor dominance, exclusion, and challenges to applying Indigenous methodologies in practice. Theoretical Foundations 🟢
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Gill Potaka-Osborne, Maaki Tuatini, Roberta Williams, and Lynley Cvitanovic (2018) describe a kaupapa Māori evaluation of a marae-based Whānau Ora initiative, highlighting relationship-building, community participation, and capability development, and showing how evaluating with whānau strengthens both outcomes and local evaluation capacity. Practice & Application 🟢
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Nedson Pophiwa and Umali Saidi (2022) argue for embedding Indigenous Knowledge Systems in Made in Africa Evaluation, challenging Euro-Western dominance and advancing culturally grounded, locally driven approaches to strengthen relevance, epistemic justice, and sustainable development outcomes. Practice & Application
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Gladys Rowe (2023) uses poetic inquiry to express fundamental differences between Indigenous and Western evaluation, foregrounding relationality, land, and spirit, and challenging dominant assumptions about evidence, validity, and what counts as meaningful knowledge in evaluation. Theoretical Foundations
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Gladys Rowe, Heather Burke, Sheila Thomas, Jerilyn Ducharme, Susan Glynn-Morris and Chris Denby (2023) explore a conversational, relational approach to embedded Indigenous evaluation, highlighting communities of practice, lived experience, and collective learning as central to supporting systems change. Practice & Application 🟢
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Robert Shepherd and Katherine Graham (2020) introduce Indigenous evaluation as a distinct paradigm, highlighting relational epistemologies, self-determination, and the need to reconcile Indigenous and Western approaches while addressing governance, policy, and community accountability challenges. Theoretical Foundations - Methodologies & Frameworks 🟢
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Cassie Stefanski and colleagues (2024) provide a scoping review of Indigenous evaluation methods and guiding principles, identifying relational, community-based, and culturally grounded approaches, and highlighting how Indigenous knowledge systems shape evaluation design, practice, and accountability. Theoretical Foundations 🟢
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Olivia Sylvester and colleagues (2020) examine participatory evaluation of Indigenous food sovereignty initiatives, showing how community-led methods, local knowledge, and relational approaches strengthen programme relevance, support self-determination, and generate more meaningful measures of wellbeing and success. Practice & Application 🟢
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Aue Te Ava and Angela Page (2018) present the tivaevae model as an Indigenous research methodology in Cook Islands education, showing how quilting metaphors guide relational, culturally grounded research and pedagogy, integrating values, identity, and community knowledge into teaching, learning, and evaluation practice. Methodologies & Frameworks 🟢
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Daniel Ticehurst (2023) offers an outsider’s perspective on Indigenous evaluation, arguing it is a disruptive, decolonising movement that challenges Western dominance, recentres Indigenous knowledge and agency, and calls for structural transformation in evaluation systems and power relations. Theoretical Foundations
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Rachael Trotman, Fiona Cram, Tanya Samu, Moi Becroft, Reremoana Theodore, and Tony Trinick (2018) describe the collaborative development of Ngā Tau Tuangahuru, a longitudinal evaluation centring Māori and Pacific definitions of success, emphasising relationships, co-design, and strengths-based, community-led inquiry. Practice & Application 🟢
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Christine Velez, Bridget Nuechterlein, Susan Connors, Grace RedShirt Tyon, Timberley M. Roane, and David C. Mays (2022) examine culturally grounded evaluation of cancer prevention initiatives with Indigenous communities, highlighting community engagement, adaptation, and context in strengthening programme relevance, uptake, and health outcomes. Practice & Application
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Kristina Vine, Tessa Benveniste, Shanthi Ramanathan, Jo Longman, Megan Williams, Alison Laycock, and Veronica Matthews (2023) review Indigenous evaluation in Australia, identifying growth in culturally informed practice while highlighting ongoing limitations in Indigenous leadership, methodological transparency, and the consistent application of Indigenous evaluation frameworks. Methodologies & Frameworks - Practice & Application 🟢
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Sera Vakacegu and Unaisi Nabobo-Baba (2021) present Veivosaki Yaga as a culturally appropriate Indigenous research method in Fiji, emphasising relational dialogue, respect, and reciprocity, and showing how Indigenous protocols guide knowledge generation, interpretation, and evaluation in ways grounded in community and culture. Methodologies & Frameworks 🟢
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Nan Wehipeihana (2023) argues that increasing cultural competence is necessary but insufficient, positioning it as a step toward Indigenous-led evaluation, and emphasising shifts in power, decision-making, and accountability to support Indigenous sovereignty and aspirations. Theoretical Foundations 🟢
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Rose Whitau and Helen Ockerby (2019) present an Indigenous evaluation protocol for a sport-for-development programme, demonstrating how yarning circles, relatedness, and community collaboration centre participant voice, support self-determination, and shape locally grounded evaluation design and practice. Methodologies & Frameworks - Practice & Application 🟢
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Megan Williams (2018) introduces the Ngāa-bi-nya Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander program evaluation framework, outlining domains of context, process, impact, and outcomes, and demonstrating how culturally grounded, holistic approaches can guide evaluation aligned with Indigenous perspectives and priorities.Methodologies & Frameworks 🟢
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Open Access Journals
Search for more articles on Indigenous Evaluation in these open access journals
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