Positionality as Praxis: Embodiment,Imagination,and Liberation in Evaluation

Abstract

This second issue in the four-part series on positionality in evaluation advances understanding of positionality as embodied practice, theoretical intervention, and liberatory praxis. Building on dialogic and relational foundations, the articles ground how evaluators’ identities, bodies, histories, and contexts of practice shape evaluation design, relationships, and use. Centering Blackness and drawing on Black feminist, Afrofuturist, and Pan-African traditions, contributors challenge narrow, procedural approaches to positionality and instead position identity as data, theory, and praxis. Through empirical, poetic, and theoretical contributions, the issue demonstrates how positionality operates as a sustained negotiation of power, responsibility, and accountability within unequal systems. Collectively, the articles call the field to recognize positionality as a dynamic and consequential dimension of ethical, justice-oriented evaluation practice.