| ELDER LARRY BREMNER (Metis), Co-Founder, Global EvalIndigenous Group; Past President, Canadian Evaluation Society; Editor, Roots & Relations, Canadian Journal of Program Evaluation  

| DR. NICOLE BOWMAN (Lunaape/Mohican, Stockbridge Munsee Tribe in WI), Global Member, EvalIndigenous; Board Member, International evaluation Academy; Section Editor, Culture and Ethics, American Journal of Evaluation; Co-Editor, Roots & Relations, Canadian Journal of Program Evaluation

As part of decolonizing academia and uplifting Indigenous ways of knowing, being, and doing,  Indigenous scholars are finding ways to create safe and impactful academic spaces for publication. Through the systematic creation of Roots and Relations, an Indigenous only section within the international Canadian Journal of Program Evaluation, the way we “do” publication is changing.  How R&R started and continues to thrive will be shared as part of a standard of sovereign rightsholders (not stakeholders) in North America. As part of the Canadian Evaluation Society (CES) also is upholding the 2015 Truth Healing and Reconciliation recommendations, evaluation editors and leaders in the field are setting the standard for global evaluation. 

Part of CES’s work also includes an UNDRIP working group to ensure that policies, practices, and systemic activities like the professionalization and training of evaluators includes the First Voice of Indigenous peoples, First Nations, Intuit, and Metis communities. By co-creation of a new conceptual and online system, the policies, practices, and processes for publication of Indigenous voices is changing. CES also shows how they are an ally/advocate for sovereignty and rights for Indigenous evaluation. Using decolonized legal and policy agreements, Indigenous authors are reclaiming the intellectual and cultural property of their voices and efforts, including the First Nations, Metis, Intuit, and other Indigenous communities’ they are in service to. This movement within evaluation is new and thus far has resulted in decolonized and Indigenous rooted policies and publications with CJPE, the international Journal of Multidisciplinary Evaluation, and Oxford University Press. These changes with concrete examples from the field of evaluation, including those funding and publishing evaluation, will also be shared.