Mapping the spatial dimensions of participatory practice: A discussion of context in evaluation

• Use a spatial metaphor to foreground dimensions of context in participatory practice.
• Identify 5 key dimensions of context in participatory practice.
• Compare context in Western and international development contexts to further explore dimensions of participatory practice.

In participatory or collaborative evaluation practice, context is considered a complex, relational and social phenomenon that frames the parameters of the inquiry process in profound ways. To help us expand upon our understanding of context, we borrow the concept of “space” from the critical geographers, as it provides a bridge between the social and geographic complexities of context, enabling us to more fully capture the social and relational dynamic that fundamentally defines participatory evaluation. Our focus is on understanding context and relationships as two interconnected, dynamic and constituent parts of evaluation practices that feature participatory spaces. We then turn to a comparative analysis of participatory practice across two published reviews of distinct sets of empirical studies as a way to extend our understanding of participatory evaluation in relation to its practical, and frequently complex, contextual expressions in the field. This comparative analysis enables us to develop a set of five dimensions (epistemic, temporal/historical, cultural, economic/organizational, political) that we believe captures the spatial and contextual characteristics and contours of participatory practice.