Paper short abstract:

The politics of knowledge within NGOs in explored through a case study on a design of a story-based evaluation. Drawing from organizational epistemology, the analysis scrutinizes on power struggles over methodologies, partnership relations, and connections with aid system during the process.

Paper long abstract:

Monitoring and evaluation systems are among the main technologies of power, mechanisms of control, and means of hegemony of managerialism both in partnerships between NGOs in global north and south and in NGOs' relationship with its donors.

The recent development management trends have prioritized certain forms of knowledge and consequent knowledge practices exemplified in measurable indicators.

However, there is a growing resistance to the mainstream knowledge trends, battles over the criteria of knowledge and search for alternative knowledge practices within NGOs.

Alternatives have emphasized process in addition to outcomes, and participatory and narrative methods rather than numeric indicators. Drawing from the notions of organizational epistemology and hegemony,

the paper scrutinizes on the politics of knowledge within organizations. It presents a qualitative case study in International Solidarity Foundation, a development NGO working on issues of gender equality and decent work in Nicaragua,

Uganda and Somaliland. The paper describes a three-year internal process of initiating, designing and experimentation of a story-based monitoring and evaluation approach to complement hitherto comprehensive indicator matrices.

The process is further analysed from perspectives of struggles over hegemony considering a) methodological questions such as validity, b) relationship between partners in regard to the division of labour in knowledge creation, and

c) connections with the international aid industry in defining criteria for relevant knowledge. The paper concludes how alternative initiatives are easily co-opted by the mainstream, and how organizational epistemologies and organizational

knowledge result from politics of knowledge and struggles over legitimacy in multiple relationships both internal and external to NGOs.