Experiences Across a Continuum: How Three Scholars Navigate Risk and Build Trust When Implementing Positionality in Practice

Positionality statements challenge the notion of objectivity in evaluation, recognizing that evaluators are shaped by their identities and experiences. From their distinct lived experiences and intersecting identities, the authors realized that their positionality is malleable and changes over time. In this manuscript, three emerging evaluators share how positionality and social location shape their evaluation practices and the decisions that they make in their work. The authors offer reflections about how engagement with positionality statements in their own practice falls along a continuum of awareness, experimentation, and integration. The proposed continuum ranges from evaluators who have yet to integrate positionality into their deliverables to evaluators who have fully incorporated positionality into their professional practice. Intentional self-reflection and self-awareness is present at every stage of the continuum. We conclude by inviting evaluators to critically examine how they use positionality as a tool to advance more just evaluation practices.