We’re Not Starting With That Framework

Overview

The Interview

Gladys Rowe: Tansi, greetings. I’m so grateful you are here!

I am here today with Tammy Mudge. She’s L’nu, from Glooscap First Nation, a member of the Mi’kmaw Nation, and a mother of four. She is a co-director (previously the manager of learning and evaluation) at Every One Every Day Kjipuktuk / Halifax, a non-profit organization working to build an ecosystem of inclusive and meaningful participation in and among neighbourhoods. She’s also – oh my goodness – a part-time faculty member at Acadia University where she teaches Decolonizing Community Development. Tammy is an active member and co-founder and chair of the Glooscap First Nation Family Recreation Committee, and a member of the Atlantic Indigenous Evaluation Stewardship Circle.

I am so grateful to have you here today. Welcome, Tammy.

Tammy Mudge: Wela’lin. Thank you.

Gladys: Before we get started, I was wondering if there is any other piece you’d like to add to your introduction?

Tammy: Every One Every Day Kjipuktuk / Halifax is an initiative of the Mi’kmaw Native Friendship Center, and we’re working hard to reimagine how we live and work together now and into the future. The idea for initiating the platform and shop here on Gottingen St. in the North End is that we want to build an ecosystem of inclusive and meaningful participation in and among neighbourhoods and do that in collaboration with community and local organizations, businesses, and our funders. We do this in a wide range of ways. The shop is actually a non-commercial community space where people can come to share knowledge and access space, tools, and toys. We have a neighbourhood team that works out of the shop, and we offer open invitations for community members to come in and create sessions to fill up our fall and spring programs. And these sessions are built and co-designed with our neighbourhood project designers and residents around the capacities and capabilities of community members.

So, for example, a woman stops into the shop, she’s a North End resident, she’s a carpenter by trade. Perhaps she co-designs a session where she shows folks in the neighbourhood how to build benches, and perhaps those benches can go out into the community afterwards. The idea is that folks will come in and learn a new skill. Perhaps they make a new friend, a new connection with someone in the North End, or maybe they meet up with someone they haven’t seen in a while, someone they’re seeing for the first time after Covid. People are itching for that connection. And then while they’re sharing knowledge, perhaps they’re sharing stories of their neighbourhood or their culture as well. There’s that sharing going on. And so instead of someone at the front instructing, it’s more based on the back-and-forth of people getting to know each other and participating together.

Ultimately, it’s just folks coming together in a different way and doing participatory projects together that can benefit themselves, their family, and community. And over time they build more socially-cohesive neighbourhoods and communities, and families become more self-sustaining and more resilient, especially to the changes that come, whether it’s gentrification or Sitqamu’k, Mother Earth, cleansing herself with any of these natural circumstances that happen. So it’s living, playing, and working together in a different way. We design our programs around capabilities of community, and then create these sessions based on inclusivity principles that we follow.“Ultimately, it’s just folks coming together in a different way and doing participatory projects together that can benefit themselves, their family, and community. And over time they build more socially-cohesive neighbourhoods and communities, and families become more self-sustaining and more resilient…”
_{– Tammy}

The shop opened in June 2022, and we had a spring program that went really well, and then we started designing for our next program. We’re in the middle of our fall program right now, and our sessions fall under many categories: cooking, building, sewing, beading, printmaking, self-care. There’s lots of different categories. And also, we’re open not just to designing the next program, but we’ve had community members come in and maybe they’ve hemmed the graduation dress for their granddaughter. So we do offer tools and resources in the shop that are free for folks to use. Our shop is designed in such a way that it’s neutral, yet very inspiring. It’s fun, it’s colorful. Our neighborhood co-designers are very good at stimulating the ideas in folks and supporting and contributing to that, so it’s a really great initiative. The long-term goal is, over time, to have cooperative and co-created communities, so being together in a different way. In everything that we do, we’re learning how we can continue and better center our work in truth and reconciliation, and we’re discovering all that entails and all that means and all the different relationships within the program.

Gladys: Sounds wonderful! Thank you for the explanation of the project. I was wondering if you could start with maybe how long have you been working in this area of Indigenous evaluation?

Tammy: Well, I’m fairly new in the field, at least as a practitioner. Maybe since late 2020. But I’ve been exploring Indigenous methodologies and methods as a focus within academia since about 2017.

Gladys: And you make an interesting note there, because Indigenous evaluation isn’t something that I started in. It really started for me in the exploration of Indigenous research. It sounds like that was your experience as well.

So when you think about the term Indigenous evaluation, what comes to mind for you? What does that mean for you?

Tammy: What comes to mind? Well, I think of Indigenous communities owning and interpreting their own stories and lived experience; being the deciders of if, when, and where those stories get shared and how they get shared. I think of the respect and reciprocity and responsibility that comes with holding that knowledge and understanding that the process of gaining knowledge is a sacred thing. It’s a sacred process. And also I think of words like holistic and relational, not centred on humans – I hear that a lot, especially in program evaluation. I think that’s an issue a lot of the time, when we’re not centering the land and nature along with those people, we’re not centering the four waters and Msit No’kmaqa (All my Relations) and keeping that balance.^[1] To me this shouldn’t be person- or people-centred. And the other thing too is that Indigenous evaluation’s definitely not always about determining the value of something. That’s another thing that stands out to me. Yeah, those are the first things I guess that are sitting with me right now.

Gladys: Wow. Yeah, that was so much! I really like your point about how it’s not necessarily person-centred. When you think about evaluations that come from a Western foundation, they really look at individual and programmatic success, and Indigenous evaluation has a different kind of focus. I wanted to ask, when you think about Indigenous evaluation being more holistic about land and language and people and relationships, how is that incorporated into the work that you do at the project that you’re working on right now?

Tammy: Well, when we developed our circle of change, our visual and narrative story of how we’re hoping to create meaningful impact for the North End community in Kjipuktuk, we incorporated and wove in some Mi’kmaw teachings and legends. At the very centre of the circle of change is Glooscap’s grandmother, Nukumi.^[2] And the story behind that legend is Glooscap. The first Mi’kmaw that he came across and was introduced to was his grandmother. And so as he was walking through the forest one day, it was early morning, there was dew on the grass, the sun had come out and the sun Na’ku’set, had heated up the dew that was on this large gray rock. And so then the large gray rock turned into the body of an old woman, and the old woman introduced herself to Glooscap as Nukumi, his grandmother. And so you can just imagine the wisdom and knowledge that Nukumi would hold, being made out of ancient rock, being one with Sitqamu’k, with Mother Earth, for so long. And so Nukumi and Glooscap journey through the forest and there’s things that happen, but at the very end she sits around the Great Spirit fire. She sits around the Great Spirit fire with Glooscap, and then she shares with him all her wisdom and knowledge.

And so when you look at our circle of change at the very center is Nukumi because she’s representative of that solid wisdom as we try to journey through and figure out and discover how we can center our work in truth and reconciliation and healing, and figure out what that means. She’s representative of the Indigenous wisdom and knowledge that’s needed at the center for that to happen. And so there’s lots of Mi’kmaw content throughout the circle of change. And it also gives a high-level introduction of the interventions we’re going to take to move towards our shared goals of social cohesion and resilience and local circular economy and those sorts of things. It’s very place-based. It speaks to the lands that we’re on. And I personally enjoy when I’m speaking with folks who aren’t L’nu, who aren’t Mi’kmaw, and just sharing all those little pieces that are represented in there. And so that’s one way we incorporate Indigenous values. I’m very big on making frameworks or processes or visuals that are very relational and place-based, I think it’s important they tell a story of the people and where you are and who you’re with and working with.

Another part of what we’re creating now is a guide group to help us do this work of figuring out the ways in which we can incorporate this strategic reconciliatory action, and continue to grow and find out what that means. And the guide group would be made up of lots of Indigenous folks. Even in building up the framework of what a guide group could be I thought of my great-grandfather, who was a river guide down in L’sitkuk (Bear River First Nation) many moons ago, and I thought, Okay, what is the purpose of a guide group? And what’s the purpose of a river guide? You navigate through the rapids, which is like navigating through the challenges. I thought of how guides also bring in resources; You have to find and locate food sources throughout the way for the folks that you’re guiding. And I thought about how here in Mi’kma’ki we lived on our river system, our waterways, our lifeways, and we had to be able to portage from river to river. So guiding is making those decisions and giving us leadership and guidance as to where to go. We started to make a visual of what the guide group could be and what their accountabilities are. I think a big thing is being able to bring Mi’kmaw culture, stories and teachings into this work in this way. Thus far people have really appreciated how they can see that representation in a different way. It’s not a flow chart with boxes and arrows, but it’s a visual and it’s a learning tool. Now they know a little bit more about Mi’kmaw culture just by seeing how it works.

Gladys: That is so amazing! I love all of the elements you just shared with me and especially the bringing together of a guide group as the foundation. Story and visual representations of teachings like the portage come into how you’re doing the work and making sense of the journey and the learning. I read some of your work and the visual representation of it just really stands out as a multi-dimensional, multimodal way of expressing your learning and the impact.

What are some of the things that you considered as you were inviting people to participate in the guide group? You’ve mentioned there was some intentionality around how you would work together.

Tammy: With the creation of the guide group, we’re definitely striving to represent the diversity of all the Indigenous voices that make up the urban Indigenous community in Kjipuktuk in the North End. One of my Mi’kmaw colleagues at Every One Every Day, I met with her a few times to show her the structure of what I was thinking and then we discerned some accountabilities and logistics and identified what kind of decisions these folks would be asked to consider. What kind of things were we bumping up against we would love to ask them questions about? She had brought up how great it would be to have many diverse voices, having traditional Elders from the urban Indigenous community and from the local Mi’kmaw neighbouring communities and also some youth of course, and having Mi’kmaw artisans (she’s an artist herself, and there’s lots of Mi’kmaw artists around in the community), some two-spirited folks, some members from Inuit communities, and some of the Mi’kmaw Native Friendship Centre staff. And then I was thinking even of our traditional hunters from our communities and the insights they would have. Even from an evaluation perspective, I was thinking of being a hunter myself, how valuable that whole process is of being in tune with your surroundings, observing everything, recognizing patterns, and also being okay if you come home without harvest. Because I think that can happen too often, especially again from the evaluation or program planning point of view; people need to have produced something, have the evidence, but they haven’t given it that time that’s needed. We need to be okay with not producing something, and saying, Well, we did it in a good way, and this is the result and that’s okay, because that’s how it should be.

“I was thinking of being a hunter myself, how valuable that whole process is of being in tune with your surroundings, observing everything, recognizing patterns, and also being okay if you come home without harvest…. We need to be okay with not producing something, and saying, Well, we did it in a good way, and this is the result and that’s okay, because that’s how it should be.”
 _{–  Tammy}There were great plans to have all these diverse voices, but then when it came down to it, people weren’t flocking in per se. And so we needed to be okay with that. We had this vision of seven or more folks on this guide group but we started with two or three. I think the main lesson there was “Just start.” A big part of it was knowing that you’re doing things in a good way and being okay with how things turn out.

Gladys: I like the point there that you made about how it’s important to just start. I think sometimes I can get caught up in all of the different things in my brain that kinda make things feel maybe a little bit more complex than they need to be. And so what I was hearing there was the trust in the fact that once you started, the community then would guide you even more in the formation of the guide group. The trust in the process is what I was hearing there.

Tammy: Yes, yes.

Gladys: So in the work that you’ve been doing so far, what are some of the things you’re learning about in terms of how you’re implementing this evaluation work?

Tammy: I’ve learned lots. I do recall a good moment of discernment for me was when I had just started out. I was working for another non-profit, and because I wasn’t initially trained or educated in Western or Eurocentric evaluation approaches or planning, my baseline of understanding was from my culture, was how I saw the world and how I chose to create things, how I processed information, and what was meaningful to my culture. My baseline was very much relational and centred in people and land and nature. Then I was given this very rigid framework and was told to incorporate that into my evaluation planning. There was this beautiful community program and I was so grateful for receiving the information, the stories, through the process of figuring out what the community valued and what they could get out of this program. But it wasn’t fitting into this boxes-and-arrows kind of framework that I was asked to work with. And so I struggled with that. I thought, Why am I being challenged by this? And so I shared it with a colleague at the time, and she was non-Indigenous and she said, You can just start with this. And she was referring to the 6, 7, 8 steps that you see everywhere in Eurocentric evaluation planning: the typical engagement and creating your data and your tools and implementation and dissemination and all of that stuff.  And she said, You start it with that to frame everything out, and then you can incorporate all these pieces, you add the cultural aspects in and weave it all through. It can all be in that container. And I thought, That’s just it right there. I said, That’s the issue. For you, because you were trained in these Eurocentric evaluation approaches – which are neither better nor worse, I’m just saying that’s how you were trained – that’s your baseline. But you can’t just assume that that would be my baseline. Because that’s not where I start from. To insinuate that, Okay, we’ll start with these six, seven steps and then you can just add in yourself, add in culture, add in the community throughout, was an “aha” moment for me, because for me it was like, That’s not where we’re starting. We’re not starting with that framework. And of course, I had that conversation with her and it was a learning moment for me and it made sense why I was struggling to have it fit in the boxes and arrows.

Gladys: Yeah, those points resonate with my thinking about Indigenous evaluation as well. If we build it on the framework or the structure that already exists around evaluation, then we’re defeating the purpose of doing this work in this way. And there’s a saying that – actually, I don’t even know if it’s a common saying, but it always runs through my head – how we start is important. And that means so many different things to me. I heard that, through some of the pieces that you were sharing, how you begin this work is important, where you start is important.

I’m going to ask you explicitly: Why is Indigenous evaluation important? Why is it important to do this work in this way?

Tammy: It’s important because, as I said earlier, the process of gaining knowledge is sacred, and Indigenous evaluation holds knowledge that way and nurtures it. And Indigenous communities have their own community standards, their own Protocols, their own knowledge systems, and Indigenous evaluation approaches are open to that. It’s not static, it’s not finite; it’s fluid and it allows for and considers many different forms of valid evidence and success. It really puts that into the hands of community and they decide, and there’s no preconceived notion of what that might be. And so I think that, as I said earlier, it’s more holistic, it’s relational, it also puts care for the earth as well as other living and non-living things at the centre. It looks beyond just the people that make up community, right? It’s all the other things as well. It’s the people, it’s the land and four waters, it’s the nature. And so it does that. I think that all communities and all folks and programs could benefit from using Indigenous evaluation practices. I certainly don’t think it’s limited to Indigenous communities or programming. I think it’s just a very holistic and very relational approach that grounds people in the work in a good way and can help communities heal.

Gladys: Awesome. So you shared that you’re new to Indigenous evaluation, and you’ve learned about how you do this through your previous experiences in Indigenous research and decolonizing work. And I’m wondering if you could share a little bit about the things that you bring into your work as an Indigenous evaluator.

I talk about it being my knowledge-gathering bundle. It’s all of these things that I’ve gathered over my lifetime. Some is from being a practitioner in Indigenous evaluation, and some might be from family stories or in the teachings that I gathered with the Knowledge Keepers in the work that I did as a graduate student. I’m wondering if there’s a way for you to gather all of these things that you then put into practice as an evaluation practitioner?

Tammy: I think growing up on the land is something I always carry with me, and I don’t think I can separate that from myself. And I think it’s taught me a lot, whether it was directly from relatives or kin or indirectly from spirit. You realize later spirit was teaching you something when you’re discerning in the quiet or when you’re older. But, yeah, I mean even the moose harvest, whether you’re doing a communal hunt or a youth hunt or with family or kin, it teaches you a lot. At a young age you’ve been trudging along for hours and all you want to do is have a shot, and you’re told you’re not ready for that yet and you can’t skip ahead to do it yet. And so you have to be okay with that. And so not rushing that process and that time needed to prepare. It teaches you patience, that’s for sure. Patience and deep listening. You’re always paying attention to your surroundings, you’re observing, and you’re listening for any signs or any movements. So whether it’s branches breaking in the bush that you hear, or the changing of the wind, you’re always listening for those sounds and those movements. And when you do hear them, what does that mean? What does it indicate? So you’re always taught to do that and to be patient and listening. And I can see how that plays out a lot in my life in different ways, but I can definitely pair it with conducting evaluation in a good way in community for sure.

I think another thing that I carry forward into my work is my experience of walking in two worlds. So going to and working at Acadia University, doing my degrees in a post-secondary institution that has this central idea of what knowledge is, and has certain people who can tell you what’s accepted as knowledge and what’s valid. And although those things are slightly changing, it’s certainly not changing fast enough, of course. I carry that experience of being in that world and then also this other piece of me, the bigger piece of me I suppose, the teachings that I’m grateful to have had shared with me over the years in different circumstances. And also the ability to take things to ceremony and what that does for me and the healing, but also the knowledge, growth, and discernment that comes through different ceremonies. That’s transformational to me. And I know that knowledge will turn into wisdom and I know that that’s transformational and that’s real. But then I walk in these learning institutions and they don’t feel or see things that way. It’s interesting, it’s got its benefits, and I try to stay open to both, certainly not changing who I am or what’s in my spirit. I nurture my spirit, but it’s helped me out at times. And then at other times, I’m sure I probably have cursed the academic perspective and got frustrated. But yeah, I think that’s another thing that I’ve carried forward through experience.

Gladys: Yeah, I love that you say that it’s transformational. I feel the same way, and I feel the idea that this is a holistic experience for me. This is me showing up as my whole self. And it’s not like I take my Indigenous evaluator hat off at the end of the day if it’s who I am and my being. Right.

Let’s see. I’m wondering if you could talk to some of the challenges that you’ve experienced trying to do this work in a good way or trying to do Indigenous evaluation in the different roles that you have. What have been some of the challenges you’ve experienced?

Tammy: The first thing that’s come up, and I’m certainly not alone in this, is the time or the space that’s not given, from perhaps a funding perspective or other partners’ or contributors’ perspectives, for when plans have to roll out or reports have to be in. That definitely doesn’t align here with Every One Every Day. When we ran the pilot out of the Mi’kmaw Native Friendship Center, that Friendship Center had been a hub in the North End community since the early 1960s. Even by people outside of Indigenous folks, it was still considered a hub of the North End. So luckily when we ran a lot of sessions out of there we already had deep-rooted connections and trust and we were so grateful for that. Starting from scratch, if there were no existing connections, it would’ve taken a lot longer. Especially a project like Every One Every Day, where we’re kind of this new idea, we’re not a service, we’re not a drop in. We’re kind of like, Come on in! Put the pot of coffee on, and let’s collaborate and co-design something together. And you take the lead! Anyways, what I’m getting at is of course the old story of not having enough time to build relationships. And so usually you are asking for forgiveness or asking, Please, can we get an extension? So that’s always a thing with reporting and people not understanding necessarily how much time it takes to actually make sure this work gets rooted and grounded in community, because you really only have one shot to gain the community’s trust.

And then reporting what certain strategic level partners might want to hear back, or what they want you to evaluate, or what they consider valuable or evidence, might not necessarily be a reflection of what the community ultimately considers important or values. I’ve come up against that. And then when you do bring up certain points about community – because everything’s very relational, it’s very place-based, and it’s not the same everywhere, so every community has their own histories – they might not be heard or accepted. Funders and partners may not share that Indigenous evaluation perspective or that understanding of what’s valid evidence. They perhaps do not see ceremonies that take place or that are attended, or just different aspects of things that are valid evidence of success in community. That’s another old thing, where you’re not wanting to have to defend what’s valid and what’s not. So you bump up against that of course. But I don’t think these two challenges are anything new. Yeah, those would probably be the two biggest or most noted things thus far that I’ve come across.

Gladys: Yeah, so many learnings there. And really the challenge is – and I want this so deeply too – to not have to defend the validity of Indigenous evaluation at every corner.

In the intro, I shared that you’re a member of the Atlantic Indigenous Evaluation Stewardship Circle. I’m wondering if you can tell me a little bit about that. What is its purpose? And how are you connected? And maybe why is it important when you think about the field of Indigenous evaluation?

Tammy: The Atlantic Indigenous Evaluation Stewardship Circle is a collective of Indigenous evaluators around the Atlantic region who participate in shared learning of different theories and methodologies associated with Indigenous evaluation for applied practice. We collaborate on project evaluation studies and attend different webinars and those sorts of things. So it’s a cohort or a circle of learning and practice. It’s great to have folks somewhat locally that you can reach out to or that are always sending resources. I love a good resource list! So luckily I got to join in with those lovely folks a couple of years ago. And it’s always great to have folks too that are practicing that you can reach out to for an Indigenous perspective.

Gladys: Yeah, absolutely. When I think about what’s been impactful in my learning about Indigenous evaluation, it’s very similar, it’s been having circles of support or communities of practice that really support that collective learning. I think that’s one of the things that’s different from other forms of evaluation: this Indigenous evaluation really comes from a place of collective wisdom and collective knowledge building, and comes from a place of walking together, learning about this work together in a way that builds up our communities. It’s not built on a competitive individualistic frame, but rather one where we want to support one another and see each other succeed in the best way possible.

We’re getting to the end of our time together, and I wanted to ask, Are there any insights that you’d like to share with emerging Indigenous evaluators about something that’s come up from your learning? Or what hopes do you have as they embark in this work?

Tammy: Again, I’m pretty novice myself, but certainly one thing that I would put out there that was definitely helpful for me is a community of practice, whether it’s the Stewardship Circle or just a collective of Indigenous evaluators from all over Turtle Island. Fortunately, I have been involved with a few and certainly could send off an email when I needed to. Certainly there are more Indigenous evaluators out there than I’m aware of. I know there are places you can go to network and get lists. Definitely finding a community of practice was very helpful especially when I was starting out.

Gladys: Awesome. That’s a wonderful offering as people begin to think about doing this work. When I asked you to be a part of the podcast, was there anything that you thought, Oh, I hope I get to share this piece of information with Gladys? Are there any final thoughts or final words that you’d like to offer?

“I never forget to go global as far as looking for things outside the box, or maybe different ways to approach things. There’s lots of other places in the world that went through colonization and have a lot of the same societal legacies continuing in communities.”
_{– Tammy}Tammy: A couple things that perhaps could be helpful. I know for me, grounding myself locally and understanding the history and diversity of the land that I’m on is important. Whether it’s my planning, my approach, my framework, my tools, or my communication, all of that needs to be rooted in the culture or the cultures of the communities/community that you’re working in. Because if you’re truly going to bring community members into this process and be very transparent, it’s important for them to see themselves in the work. So whether that’s a relational framework, a circle of change that has some Mi’kmaw teachings in it, or other pieces of the maps or stories you’re hearing in community that you’re incorporating, I think that’s important. There may be things that might be useful in other parts of Turtle Island or across the big pond that I might be able to offer, but ultimately things need to be grounded in place to really be impactful and transformational and, most importantly, for community members to see themselves in the work, to have agency.

And another thing that I found, if I’m ever stuck, I never forget to go global as far as looking for things outside the box, or maybe different ways to approach things. There’s lots of other places in the world that went through colonization and have a lot of the same societal legacies continuing in communities. And so whenever you want something outside the box, whenever you might be stuck, don’t forget to go global. I guess ground yourself locally, but don’t be afraid to go global, <laughs> if that makes any sense at all. But yeah, thank you.

Gladys: I love that. Go global and ground yourself locally. Awesome. Thank you, Tammy, so much for having this conversation with me today. I’m inspired by hearing the stories and examples of this kind of work being done in community in Halifax, and hearing about how it can contribute to building a knowledge base for Indigenous evaluations so that we don’t have to continue to justify our work. I’m grateful that you spent the time here today and ekosi!

Footnotes