Biopolitical power and paradoxes in evaluation research with transnational migrant youth

Abstract

In this article, the authors theorize the practice of evaluation as linked to truth-telling and organizing future societies. Drawing on Foucauldian notions of biopolitical governmentality, the authors examine the origins of the field of evaluation, theorize it as a truth-telling practice that aims to control populations and futures, and consider the implications of this for a current evaluation project with transnational newcomer migrant youth in the United States. The authors raise the following questions about evaluation as a social practice: Who/what knowledge is produced in the process? What mechanisms/technologies are deployed to reason, compare, and quantify migrant youth experiences, and at what cost? What are the ethical imperatives underlying this truth-telling process? The article offers a productive critique of current evaluation practices, providing theoretical and methodological implications of this analysis, arguing to expose the politics of governance embedded in evaluation.