Many things can be communicated through dialogue, including information, thoughts, feelings, attitudes, beliefs and personal experiences. More recently, dialogues have been used in focus group research and in program evaluations. Despite the increasing prevalence of dialogue in research and evaluation, much is still unknown about dialogue, especially how dialogue emerges and occurs within a group setting. The aim of the current study was to describe and identify the various factors involved in a dialogue, examine the relationships among these factors, and conceptualize the process of dialogue within a multi-stakeholder participatory evaluation. A qualitative analysis of three focus groups, each comprised of eight to ten participants, yielded several findings. First, several factors were found to help facilitate the interactions between multiple stakeholders in dialogue, including the development of common ground and specific contributions made by participants. Secondly, communication within these multiple stakeholder groups was found to alternate between two individuals, a dyadic exchange, or between multiple participants, a complex exchange. Thirdly, the moderator and participants were found to take on each other roles. Finally, from these conversations, a model was developed to illustrate the progression of a dialogue in these groups. These results have many implications for program evaluators, focus group leaders, and other practitioners in the field.

The purpose of this research is to examine the ways in which public contributions, as part of a larger public participation program, can shape the use of the Canadian Water Sustainability Index (CWSI) and increase its relevance to the communities for which it is used. A case study in the Clear Lake watershed in Riding Mountain National Park (RMNP), in Manitoba, was undertaken in which stakeholder and partner perceptions, knowledge, concerns and priorities were gathered through a questionnaire and interviews from August to November 2009. This information provided a lens through which the CWSI could be viewed regarding its social relevancy. Public consultation highlighted four main areas of interest upon which indicators can be focused: bottled water use; well water reliance; water conservation and efficiency; and communications. While the identification and development of indicators will be led primarily by RMNP, the indicators will be used in monitoring, reporting, and communicating within the watershed community. Socially relevant indicators are intended to complement scientific indicators concurrently being developed for the Clear Lake watershed. Public participation increased the relevancy of the CWSI to suit local needs, although the participative process was limited by time, complexity of the information, and a necessarily broad survey.

This dissertation has two primary objectives. First, through an analysis of empirical data, it presents a systematic, in-depth analysis of how rural populations react and adjust to adversity within specific socio-economic and institutional contexts. The analysis applies a vulnerability framework to understand the complex relationships between households, communities, and larger environmental, socio-economic, and political factors and how they influence drought impacts on the population. Using a combination of quantitative and qualitative data to look at issues of overall well-being, resource access, and livelihood and risk management strategies, the results provide insights into why most households are unable to successfully mitigate the impacts of drought. The analytical framework also provides a mechanism for making policy-relevant recommendations. In this vein, the dissertation explores the need for a new approach to the status quo of public policy making and presents an applied model for participatory planning to reduce drought vulnerability in Ceará. The pilot program, Projeto MAPLAN, is an effort, based on an empirical understanding of the public and private sides of vulnerability, to redefine the way that politics as usual are carried out. It challenges the way in which decisions are made by stimulating public participation and providing tools for accountability. On the public side it works to institutionalize effective participation through citizen input and governmental recognition of that input. On the private side the model works to increase the availability of resources and improve access to resources in order to expand the range of opportunities and strategies and to help households flourish in a semi-arid region.

Community gardens are places where people connect, share, and engage their social and ecological communities. The purpose of this thesis was to document and communicate participants’ experiences of community-building through community gardening in Kenora, Ontario, Canada. The primary method used was Photovoice, whereby a group of twelve participants shared photos and stories of their garden communities in a series of workshops. Follow-up interviews were used to get participant feedback on the Photovoice process and fill gaps in the data, while participant observation was used to triangulate data. Results suggest a uniquely relational perspective of community gardening, the significance of sharing and learning in the garden, as well as success with and barriers to social capital and ecological citizenship among gardeners. Of particular importance, future garden initiatives should facilitate opportunities for intergenerational bonding, connecting across community gardens, building gardens in accessible locations, addressing systemic barriers to inclusion, and conducting further community-based research.

Many things can be communicated through dialogue, including information, thoughts, feelings, attitudes, beliefs and personal experiences. More recently, dialogues have been used in focus group research and in program evaluations. Despite the increasing prevalence of dialogue in research and evaluation, much is still unknown about dialogue, especially how dialogue emerges and occurs within a group setting. The aim of the current study was to describe and identify the various factors involved in a dialogue, examine the relationships among these factors, and conceptualize the process of dialogue within a multi-stakeholder participatory evaluation. A qualitative analysis of three focus groups, each comprised of eight to ten participants, yielded several findings. First, several factors were found to help facilitate the interactions between multiple stakeholders in dialogue, including the development of common ground and specific contributions made by participants. Secondly, communication within these multiple stakeholder groups was found to alternate between two individuals, a dyadic exchange, or between multiple participants, a complex exchange. Thirdly, the moderator and participants were found to take on each other roles. Finally, from these conversations, a model was developed to illustrate the progression of a dialogue in these groups. These results have many implications for program evaluators, focus group leaders, and other practitioners in the field.

The purpose of this research is to examine the ways in which public contributions, as part of a larger public participation program, can shape the use of the Canadian Water Sustainability Index (CWSI) and increase its relevance to the communities for which it is used. A case study in the Clear Lake watershed in Riding Mountain National Park (RMNP), in Manitoba, was undertaken in which stakeholder and partner perceptions, knowledge, concerns and priorities were gathered through a questionnaire and interviews from August to November 2009. This information provided a lens through which the CWSI could be viewed regarding its social relevancy. Public consultation highlighted four main areas of interest upon which indicators can be focused: bottled water use; well water reliance; water conservation and efficiency; and communications. While the identification and development of indicators will be led primarily by RMNP, the indicators will be used in monitoring, reporting, and communicating within the watershed community. Socially relevant indicators are intended to complement scientific indicators concurrently being developed for the Clear Lake watershed. Public participation increased the relevancy of the CWSI to suit local needs, although the participative process was limited by time, complexity of the information, and a necessarily broad survey.

Many things can be communicated through dialogue, including information, thoughts, feelings, attitudes, beliefs and personal experiences. More recently, dialogues have been used in focus group research and in program evaluations. Despite the increasing prevalence of dialogue in research and evaluation, much is still unknown about dialogue, especially how dialogue emerges and occurs within a group setting. The aim of the current study was to describe and identify the various factors involved in a dialogue, examine the relationships among these factors, and conceptualize the process of dialogue within a multi-stakeholder participatory evaluation. A qualitative analysis of three focus groups, each comprised of eight to ten participants, yielded several findings. First, several factors were found to help facilitate the interactions between multiple stakeholders in dialogue, including the development of common ground and specific contributions made by participants. Secondly, communication within these multiple stakeholder groups was found to alternate between two individuals, a dyadic exchange, or between multiple participants, a complex exchange. Thirdly, the moderator and participants were found to take on each other roles. Finally, from these conversations, a model was developed to illustrate the progression of a dialogue in these groups. These results have many implications for program evaluators, focus group leaders, and other practitioners in the field.

Photovoice is a Participatory Action Research (PAR) method that generates knowledge about the lived experiences of members of marginalized communities. Participants are understood to be experts of their experiences and are asked to take photos of their lives. Photovoice is highly flexible in application and participants can have varying degrees of involvement in components of the method, from design to dissemination of findings. Although providing opportunity for a high degree of participation is ideal, this is less frequently demonstrated in the literature. To understand the impact of participation on the type of information generated, individuals living in supportive housing were asked to share their experiences of their housing. Perspectives of consumers of supportive housing have had little presence in the housing literature, particularly within a photovoice framework. Therefore, this research asked consumers about their housing as well as how they experienced their participation across two photovoice projects that afforded more and less opportunity for participation. This dissertation consists of three studies conducted on two distinct projects. Studies 1 and 2 were conducted on the HousingPlus Photovoice Project, an investigator initiated and driven application of photovoice. Study1 examined what can be learned about supportive housing and revealed rich information about participants’ experiences with their housing. Study 2 examined experiences of stakeholders with the photovoice method, including participants and project contributors. Study 2 revealed three distinct approaches to photography: planned, discovery-oriented, and task-oriented approaches to photography. Participants who used a discovery-oriented approach tended to benefit the most from this project. Contributors shared the common value of supporting participation but had divergent perspectives of the photographs, an important product of participation. Contributors tended to focus either on the external or internal photo narratives. Study 3 was conducted on the Home Photovoice Project, which was initiated and run by a community-based agency. This second project provided a point of comparison to determine whether a more participatory application of photovoice would result in similar or distinct findings related to supportive housing and stakeholder experiences with the method. Although the three distinct styles of participation observed in the HousingPlus Photovoice Project were also observed in the Home Photovoice Project, most participants developed a planned approach to photography over time. Participants who began with a planned or task-oriented approach tended to benefit the most from this more participatory application of photovoice. More was learned about shared participant experiences and perspectives in the Home Photovoice Project. In contrasting these projects it is apparent that the choice of methodological focus significantly impacts the photos and narratives produced, approaches to participation, and stakeholder experiences of photovoice. This has important implications for the design and delivery of photovoice projects.

This thesis presents an exploration of the operationalization of empowerment outcomes in research on transformative participatory evaluations, focusing on the context of international development evaluation. Covering a 15 year period from 1999 and 2014, through the examination of the empirical research literature, the study explores: 1) how empowerment outcomes are measured, 2) the extent to which these outcomes demonstrate empowerment principles, and 3) which factors and conditions appear to enable or detract from the attainment of these outcomes. I found that the current state of the empirical research on transformative participatory evaluation to be largely comprised of reflective case narratives that rely solely on scarcely documented qualitative methods. In general, transformative outcomes do tend to mirror empowerment principles such as ownership, inclusion, democracy, and social justice. Finally, I found that various factors and conditions are critical to the reported attainment of transformative outcomes, particularly in relation to the local program context, for example, reforms in local and international governments that support increased local control over resources and governance, organizational structures and priorities that are congruent with empowerment objectives, and previous experience with empowerment processes. I also highlighted deficiencies in the current empirical research and call on the evaluation community to improve research on transformative approaches to participatory evaluation by suggesting critical areas for practice and writing. These include strengthening research designs and the use of meta-evaluations, further defining and clarifying key terms, and providing rich detail to facilitate further learning in this area.

The project I describe in this report took place over the course of three months, coinciding with the outbreakof the coronavirus pandemic, and is the culmination of my BA in “Design + Change”. Inherent in this courseis a proposition that is central to my work here.The “Design + Change” programme covers a wide range of Design practices, and offers an overview of manypressing issues in need of socially and environmentally sustainable change. As I see it, the rubric of “Change”appeals to a sense of Urgency; and “Design” is a promising site of Agency. These two keywords have beencentral to my project from the beginning, and when brought together, I believe they make an appeal to values.Between the Urgency and the Agency of the present moment, is Crisis. “Crisis”, from the Ancient Greek,krinein, means: “to choose, to decide”. We are currently in a position of empirical urgency, but we are alsoin subjective and intersubjective crisis. Not only is the environment under threat, but so is the public realmwhich is vital for concerted action. It is increasingly common to feel that it is “easier to imagine the end of theworld than the end of capitalism”1, and maybe most alarmingly, it is harder and harder to sustain constructivedialogue about any of the crises we face with those we don’t agree with. If we want to overcome this impasse,we have to collectively entertain basic questions about how we want to live and what we want to live for.The work I detail here aims to provide fruitful answers to my carefully assembled research question:“How do I sustain myself while working towards Sustainment?”(Sustainment is the view of sustainability concerned with the long-term existence of life on Earth, and distinctfrom its pervasive, hollowed-out version, given in to the marketing of “sustainable consumerism”.)In my framing of this project I made the deliberate choice to remain consistent with this urgency even if thistranscended the boundaries of design. This approach is captured perfectly in Naomi Klein’s adage that “Thereare no non-radical options left on the table”.This project comes out of is an uncompromising curiosity for the kinds of practices that might evoke theagency to bring about meaningful systemic transformation, whether or not they are understood as design. Itis a process of “prototyping” these kinds of practices with others, since we are all designers and everything isdesigned.This was only possible, however, after taking an unflinching look at disciplines’, professions’ and employment’srole in driving change.The “method” that came out of this is the confluence of Learning (Pedagogy, research), Alternatives (Prefigurativepolitics), Together (Participatory Design, Design Activism).