what is relational design, valuation & evaluation?
Relational design, valuation and evaluation are methodologies for aligning with life-bearing ways of knowing and being in a project, and identifying and interrupting patterns of power that disrupt them. It draws on artistic, embodied, relational and analytical methods including deep listening, storytelling, drawing and mapping, poetry, somatic practice and critical social analysis to deepen understandings of what’s happening and open onto possibilities for transformation. It is informed by earth-centered, living systems-inspired, queer and decolonial knowledges that help us create more holistic maps of problems and what is needed to address them. Relational (e)valuation puts relationship and collective health at the center of systemic transformation in organizations and cultivates conditions for healing and repair.
The elements of a relational design, valuation and/or evaluation program depend on an organization’s context and needs. It can include the following activities in-person or onlinel):
- meetings with individuals and groups to share stories, constellate information, and map areas of growth and struggle (using conversational and creative frames and exercises)
- research and participatory inquiry into the wider nested contexts in which a group is working
- ongoing, iterative reflections on learning (including around challenges, epiphanies, flows and blockages, strategies, ways of relating and more)
- the creation of and experimentation with practices, tools and materials to guide general and specific forms of learning in organizing contexts and everyday life
- ongoing review of program materials, practices, experiences and situations
- formal qualitative and quantitative project valuation strategies, specialized and collaborative analysis, and discussion of outcomes and recommendations and at key moments in aproject
my orientation & approach
I design and facilitate programs to help groups and organizations center radical relationship in their work. This means interrupting interpersonal, institutional and historical and systemic patterns of power that diminish, deny and harm interconnection. The programs focus on identifying binary, hierarchical, linear and transactional ways of thinking and relating, and deepening capacities for facing and challenging these and other logics of anthropocentrism, colonial capitalism, cis-heteropatriarchy, white supremacy, Eurocentrism and ableism. With twenty-five years of experience in critical, feminist and queer and decolonial theory and social research, I work with groups that want to learn and develop alternatives to ‘diversity, equity and inclusion’ initiatives, and am particularly interested in working with people who are ready to move or already see beyond reform.
I have been doing social and relational research for more than twenty-five years and bring both deep experience and a listening-learning heart and mind to my partnerships and projects.
sample work
A six-part series of free coaching sessions for BIPOC racial equity and social justice practitioners Our Bodhi Project, Portland, US, May-September 2021
A six-part series of free coaching sessions for racial equity and social justice practitioners who identify as white, Our Bodhi Project, Portland, US, November-December, 2021
An 18-month program organized by Seeding Justice to strengthen grassroots groups’ capacities for anti-racist organizing and cross-cultural engagement, Our Bodhi Project, Portland, US, July 2022-December 2023
ART BY @CROWCAMINO
1. A six-month process to gather and learn from nursing scholars’ stories about their work in planetary health, virtual, 2024
2. A three-month collaborative project to write and edit a professional position statement, emphasizing linguistic power analysis, virtual, 2024
A six-month process of organizational learning and reflection for transformative transition, virtual, 2025
get in touch to work with me
Contact me to explore possibilities for working together, or if you’d like to learn more about how relational design, valuation and evaluation work can support you and/or your organization’s learning, alignment with co-liberatory sensibilities and political accountability.
Sarah Amsler 