The May 13 Group PODCAST – Details, episodes & analysis

We're going to be taking a break this month, but we'll be back in October. In the meantime, you can stay connected with us on our website themay13group.net.

Summary

In this episode, Sarah Stachowiak joins Carolina and Vidhya in reflecting transparently on our financial relationship. How does the owning class’s control over manufacturing processes and products show up in the knowledge economy and the evaluation of public and nonprofit/ nongovernmental programs? What does it mean for the “raw material” (data about/ from program participants)? For the “independence” of knowledge workers, who market ourselves in terms of how much more value we produce for the people who pay for our goods and services? Can we think of financial exchange differently? How could we organize accountability in knowledge work horizontally across class status—not necessarily around shared experiences of oppression, but rather around shared resistance against it?

⁠⁠Episode 4 TRANSCRIPT⁠

Notes

• 1:30: In solidarity with the Duwamish, we lift up this petition for federal recognition as well as their reparations program, Real Rent
• 6:47: The Critical Educators for Social Justice Special Interest Group (SIG) made is no longer available online. Read more here.
• 8:47: AEA’s statement is no longer available online but reprinted here
• 10:12: It was more like 6 weeks later, not 6 months later that the Advocacy & Policy Change TIG issued a statement
• 11:35: The only other statement that we are aware of AEA having made was issued in 2003. Read more here.
• 33:11: Read more about “kinder and gentler” here and here
• 35:29: The financial benefits are explained here

References

• ORS Impact
• Who Are We?
• What is anthropology?
• Making Ends Meet
• Kathryn Edin⁠
• ⁠Laura Lein⁠
• Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act
• The welfare queen myth shapes who we believe is deserving and fully human, and who is not
• EvalTalk
• AEA APC TIG
• George Zimmerman
• American Educational Research Association (AERA)
• Critical Educators for Social Justice
• “Special Interest Group” (SIG)
• At‐risk programs: Evaluation and critical inquiry
• White nationalism appears to be connected ideologically to the growing Christian nationalism movement
• American Evaluation Association
• Remembering the El Paso massacre that targeted Latinos
• Multiethnic Issues in Evaluation (MIE) Topical Interest Group (TIG)
• APC Evaluators Actions to Undo Racism and White Supremacy in our Field
• Jared Raynor
• Robin Kane
• Zsuzsanna Lippai
• Anne Giennap
• Pledge of Refusal to Profit
• Causal Pathways
• On Capitalism’s Emotional Logics
• White Women’s Power in Nonprofits
• Toward an Understanding of Founder’s Syndrome
• Yvonne Belanger
• Solidarity Is Not a Market Exchange
• The Price of Civil Rights: Black Lives, White Funding, and Movement Capture
• Philanthropy & Movement Capture
• What is General Operating Support and Why is it Important?
• Hindolo Pokawa
• What Is A Co-op?
• Marxism and Worker Cooperatives
• Contradictions of Capitalism and Their Ideological Counterparts
• The New Politics of Ownership
• Identity Politics and Elite Capture
• The Curious Case of Self-Exploitation
• The fantasy of employability and the ironic struggle for self-exploitation
• Social Stratification
• Yes, I Said "National Liberation"
• Purity politics in compromised times
• From allies to comrades
• Why join the Intro to Decolonial Sustainability course from Possible Futures
• Colonialism, Coloniality and Settler Colonialism
• Decolonization of Asia and Africa, 1945–1960
• Liberalism and the Idea of Toleration
• Neoliberalism
• Gramsci and hegemony
• Possible Futures
• How corporate “sustainability” evolves into hyper-colonial “regeneration”
• Reparations as a Transitional Justice Mechanism
• From Allies to Co-Conspirators
• The Corporate War Against Higher Education
• The Emotional Logic of Capitalism
• A Theory of Commodification
  

Music

“Inspired” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) ⁠⁠Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0⁠⁠

Contact us 

Website:⁠⁠ https://themay13group.net⁠⁠⁠

LinkedIn:

• Carolina: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carodela⁠⁠⁠
• Vidhya: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/vidhyashanker⁠⁠

Summary

In this episode, Carolina and Vidhya reflect on the tension among learning from the past, meeting immediate needs in the present, and both imagining and building a better future. We discuss evaluation’s origins as a tool for capital and grapple with our status as members of the professional/ managerial class. Folx with our training and current positionality find uncertainty “risky.” Whose interests do we ultimately serve? Could a solidarity economy offer evaluators a safety net or better fallback position from which to make collective demands—by organizing ourselves or joining existing movements that serve the working class?

⁠⁠Episode 3 TRANSCRIPT⁠

Notes

• 8:19, 19:50, 20:36: The author⁠⁠ and date of publication are ⁠⁠Edward Suchman and 1967.
• 21:12: Vidhya meant ⁠⁠The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996⁠⁠
• 24:44: It is racist in that there are no regular Black or indigenous characters. Additionally, although there IS an Asian adoptee and a Colombian immigrant character, the Asian adoptee is not old enough to speak for much of the show’s run. Jokes are made at Asians’ expense, including hers. Plots about the Colombian immigrant largely reinforce stereotypes about Latine women.

References

• Appreciative Inquiry⁠⁠
• Nonprofit Industrial Complex: a set of symbiotic relationships that link political and financial technologies of state and owning class control with surveillance over public political ideology, including and especially emergent progressive and leftist social movements (Rodriguez, 2006)
• ⁠⁠Debating Colonial Legacies of Development Studies⁠⁠
• “Why is Evaluation So White?”⁠⁠
• The Professional Evolution of Michael Scriven⁠
• ⁠Recapturing Moral Discourse in Evaluation⁠
• ⁠⁠Capitalism & the Logic of Deservingness: Understanding Meritocracy through Political Economy⁠⁠
• ⁠Just Transition⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠Black Power⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠Ethnic Studies Student Strike⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠Student Socialist Movement in France⁠⁠
• ⁠Evaluation Roots Reconsidered: Asa Hilliard, a Fallen Hero in the “Nobody Knows My Name” Project & African Educational Excellence⁠
• ⁠⁠Unearthing Evaluation’s Roots⁠⁠
• ⁠Evaluation and Social Justice—Seeking multicultural validity: A postcard from the road⁠
• Positivism⁠
• Scientific management brought the scientific method into managerial practice to address the loss that capital incurs through “inefficiency” in labor productivity
• ⁠⁠What “Capitalism” Is and How It Affects People⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠The Racist Beginnings of Standardized Testing⁠⁠
• ⁠Social Darwinism, Race & Research
• ⁠⁠⁠Reclaiming Abundance Under Capitalism⁠⁠
• ⁠Better Living Through Evaluation? Images of Progress Shaping Evaluation Practice⁠
• ⁠⁠From Colonial Administration to Development Studies: A Postcolonial Critique of the History of Development Studies⁠
• ⁠Diversity in the Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector⁠
• ⁠The Evaluative Research Design⁠
• Justin Laing of ⁠Hillombo Consulting⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠What Is Orientalism?
• ⁠⁠Perry Preschool Project
• ⁠⁠The Negro Family: The Case for National Action⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠War on Poverty⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠Temporary Assistance for Needy Families⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠Affirmative Action⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠⁠This⁠⁠⁠ was the closest to a critical review of ⁠⁠⁠Modern Family⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠Epistemic Violence⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠Charles Mills⁠⁠
• ⁠Righting Wrongs⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠Mission Statements as Strategic Management Tools
• ⁠⁠What is Scientism?⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠Eugenics & Scientific Racism⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠Base & Superstructure
• ⁠⁠The CIA & the Frankfurt School’s Anti-Communism⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠The Ruling Class & the Buffer Zone⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠On the Origins of the Professional-Managerial Class⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠What Do We Mean By Solidarity Economy?⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠Measuring Regenerative Economics⁠
• ⁠⁠What is the Extractive Economy?⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠National Labor Relations Act⁠⁠⁠⁠
• Neoliberal Globalization⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠Project 2025⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠Study Finds Untapped Potential in Native American Art⁠⁠

Music

“Inspired” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) ⁠⁠Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0⁠⁠

Contact us

• Website: ⁠⁠⁠https://themay13group.net⁠⁠⁠
• LinkedIn:
• Carolina: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/carodela⁠⁠⁠
• Vidhya: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vidhyashanker⁠⁠

Summary

In this episode, hosts Carolina De La Rosa Mateo and Vidhya Shanker ask, “why evaluation?” We wonder if evaluation can be a site of resistance against racial/gendered capitalism, when capital developed evaluation to support its interests and continues to control the means and ends of knowledge production. Can evaluators renounce capitalism and positivism to organize against exploitation alongside the working class? Can we refuse to take EEI, DEI, CRE, GEDI, CRT, etc. for granted and change the structure of the knowledge economy?

Episode 2 TRANSCRIPT

Notes

• 7:19: Vidhya should have referred to the imperial wars in Southeast Asia.
• 19:45: Access to the written word provides an advantage only in hierarchical systems that devalue oral traditions and non-written languages and knowledge to justify the displacement of entire bodies of knowledge and ways of knowing and the corresponding domination of entire peoples who are portrayed as primitive or unfit to govern themselves
• 20:30: (Vidhya’s elaboration) Tamil language and culture predate Sanskrit and what people now call Hinduism. But the language that brahmins typically claim is Sanskrit. Though no longer spoken, Sanskrit is still used within Hindu hegemony in much the same way that Latin and Greek are used within European hegemony: to provide authority and legitimacy to specific ideas and practices and to discredit others.
• 23:15: The only time that there is not an adversarial relationship between workers and management is when workers are management, as in self-governed cooperatives
• 47:06: We just resist being reduced to numbers. There is also ⁠the stereotype⁠ that Asians only like numbers—from the 1965 Immigration Act⁠

References

• Rodríguez, D. (2016). ⁠The Political Logic of the Non-Profit Industrial Complex⁠. Scholar and Feminist Online—Navigating Neoliberalism in the Academy, Nonprofits, and Beyond, 13.2.
• ⁠Seizing the Means of Knowledge Production⁠ (6,000-word blog)
• ⁠How Environmentalism was Separated from Class Politics⁠ (60-min video of a Jacobin talk by Matt Huber)
• ⁠The Professional-Managerial Class⁠ (2-hr video of a Jacobin talk with ⁠Catherine Liu⁠)
• ⁠The Dialectic of Enlightenment⁠ (25-min video)
• How Europe Under-developed Africa: 50 years since its publication⁠ (2-hr video about Walter Rodney’s activist scholarship)
• Vidhya’s understanding is based on personal communication over time with Justin Laing of ⁠Hillombo Consulting⁠
• ⁠Why Marx was Right: Alienation⁠ (25-min video)
• How Capitalism Absorbs Anticapitalism⁠ (15-min video)
• ⁠West India Emancipation⁠ speech delivered at Canandaigua, New York, August 3, 1857
• “Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them” (p. 139 of Assata: An autobiography, 1987; Lawrence Hill)
• Marshall, A. G. (2015). ⁠Black Liberation and the Foundations of Social Control⁠. The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 74(4), 775–795.
• Delgado, R. (2009.) ⁠Explaining the Rise and Fall of African-American Fortunes: Interest Convergence and Civil Rights Gains⁠. Harvard Civil Rights—Civil Liberties Law Review, 37: 369–387.
• Kohl-Arenas, E. (2015). ⁠The Self-Help Myth: Towards a Theory of Philanthropy as Consensus Broker⁠. The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 74(4), 796–825.
• The ⁠MN IBPOC in Evaluation Community of Praxis⁠ Facebook group
• ⁠The Frankfurt School, Student Radicalism & Anti-Communism⁠ (75-min podcast by Unequal Exchange with ⁠Gabriel Rockhill⁠)
• ⁠The Frankfurt School: From a Failed Revolution to Critical Theory⁠ (25-min video)
• ⁠A place for solitude, community & healing for attendees who identify as Indigenous, Black, and People of Color (IBPOC) at Evaluation 2019!⁠ (AEA365 Blog)

Music

• “Inspired” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0

Contact us

Website: ⁠https://themay13group.net⁠

LinkedIn:

• Carolina: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/carodela⁠
• Vidhya: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/vidhyashanker

Summary

In this episode, we (hosts Vidhya Shanker and Carolina De La Rosa Mateo) introduce ourselves, share how our worlds came together, and discuss The May 13 Group. We talk about our personal histories inside and outside evaluation, the Minnesota IBPOC in Evaluation Community of Praxis, how The May 13 Group came to be, and what it could possibly become. We invite anyone who works in and around evaluation or other knowledge work (e.g., philanthropy, nonprofits, NGOs, government, academia) to take a listen and help craft the ecosystem!

Episode 1 TRANSCRIPT

Notes

1 correction: At the 45:34 mark, Vidhya misspoke by saying "before my generation and even before me" when she meant to say "before me and even before my generation."

References

• Why is Evaluation So White? (90-min video of Center for Evaluation Innovation webinar that took place on 5/13/2020)
• Definitional Tension: The Construction of Race in and through Evaluation (dissertation that draws from and led to many of the ideas The May 13 Group is working with)
• Pangea World Theater (comrades who helped create the stop-action play entitled The Revolution Will Not Be Culturally Competent, which led to the MN IBPOC in Evaluation Community of Praxis)
• Theater of the Oppressed (playlist of videos ranging from 5 to 30 min on Augusto Boal and the performance traditions underlying The Revolution Will Not Be Culturally Competent)
• Welcome to the Revolution! MN IBPOC in Evaluation Community of Praxis (AEA365 Blog entry)
• Shaking Up the Evaluation Patriarchy: AEA Womanists & Feminists Coming Together to Claim Power and Place in the Academy (AEA365 Blog entry)
• The Invisible Labor of Women of Color and Indigenous Women in Evaluation, Part 1 (AEA365 Blog entry)
• The Invisible Labor of Women of Color and Indigenous Women in Evaluation, Part 2 (AEA365 Blog entry)
• Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective (inspiration for much of the mutual aid work)
• Why is Evaluation So White? 10 Ways to Repair, Reverse, Redress, and Regenerate from the Racialized Circulation of Capital in Evaluation (20-min video of Grantmakers for Effective Organizations short-talk)
• Mondragon (worker-owned coop in Spain)
• The Rand Corporation and Our Policy Makers (article about the Rand Corporation)
• Beyond Mobility: The Limits of Liberal Urban Policy (paper with a bit about/ surrounding the Urban Institute)
• The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex (book about the origins of philanthropy and NPIC)

Music

• “Inspired” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) ⁠Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0⁠

Contact us

Website: ⁠⁠https://themay13group.net⁠⁠

Linktree (Vidhya): https://linktr.ee/dr.vidhyashankerphd

LinkedIn:

• Carolina: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carodela
• Vidhya: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vidhyashanker

The May 13 Group is an emerging ecosystem oriented toward—and energized by—epistemic healing and wholeness in, through, and around evaluation. Join hosts Carolina De La Rosa Mateo and Vidhya Shanker as they dive into ideas and stories that deepen our understanding of how structurally-focused collective action, including direct action organizing, can challenge capitalist relations of knowledge production and colonial ways of knowing, reclaim the means and ends of knowledge production, and build the foundation for a solidarity economy.