Judgment, flourishing, and the composting of evaluation through Reflective Dialogue
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Abstract
In an era of ecological collapse, deliberate assaults on knowledge, and deepening inequities, the field of evaluation is still shaped by dominance logics, including positivist, colonial, technocratic, and patriarchal ways of seeing. These harmful frames are present, persistent as toxins in the soil. They distort what counts as knowledge, whose voice is heard, and what forms of flourishing are possible. We call for composting these logics through Reflective Dialogue (RD), a living, relational stance that re-grounds evaluation as an interpretive act of judgment accountable to equity and justice. Drawing on justice-oriented lineages, Indigenous and feminist epistemologies, and traditions of practical wisdom, we position RD as the living soil that sustains evaluative practice.
Through critique, metaphor, and practice-based vignettes, we show how RD interrupts the illusion of neutrality, redistributes epistemic power, and turns denial into nourishment for new possibilities. We contrast old ways of evaluation that collapse judgment into siloed, tidy narratives with new ways that co-create meaning, break the frame, and hold space for discomfort, uncertainty, and transformation. We include an appendix that translates RD into concrete evaluator actions, observable shifts in behavior, and survival strategies for working inside harmful systems and enacting an RD-orientation.
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