Being practical, being safe: doing evaluations in contested spaces

Abstract

This final article summarizes and synthesizes the full special edition. This volume questioned evaluation as philosophy, enterprise, and practice from the point of view of doing evaluation under conditions of social violence, disruption, and division. In this final article, we clarify the issues and problems which challenge the professional practice of evaluation and propose guiding questions for evaluators designing and doing evaluation in worlds like these. We attend to the consequences for evaluation and evaluator of choosing to inhabit these violent worlds as an evaluator.