Our Work: What does collective action look like?

The May 13 Group echoes recommendations of the 2001 Kellogg-funded Building Diversity Initiative (BDI) study by Community Science, as well as Two Gems’ 2007 evaluation of BDI and Kien Lee’s and Brandi Gilbert’s ten-year reflection on BDI. As such, it amplifies three intertwined feedback loops—none of which evaluation’s ecosystem currently feeds—among members of the global majority. These are listed below.

Consciousness Raising

To grow critical consciousness.

Incubate subjugated ancestral, experiential, and community knowledge among evaluators from marginalized groups and the global majority as well as those in solidarity with them.

Counter Narrative

To grow critical connections.

Preserve and disseminate evaluators’ subjugated ancestral, experiential, and community knowledge to challenge harmful narratives like color-blindness and DEI, which contribute to epistemic violence and epistemicide.

Livelihood Development

To grow critical mass.

Develop sustainable structures that allow evaluators to deepen, grow, and apply their subjugated ancestral, experiential, and community knowledge rather than regulating and punishing them for it.

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