Measuring Collectivization Initiatives: Creating a Knowledge Base from Collective Voices

Abstract

This article offers a practice-based reflection on the challenges and possibilities of evaluating collectivisation under conditions of polycrisis and the transformational imperative. Drawing on the Sindhanai initiative — a multi-year dialogic inquiry developed through sustained engagement with eleven collectives across South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Kenya — it surfaces provisional principles and orientations for evaluation practice that are adequate to the work of collective transformation. Grounded in the lived experiences and analytical voices of collectives organising against caste-based labour exploitation, gender-based violence, migration, and intersecting systems of oppression, the article attends to dimensions of change that conventional evaluation frameworks routinely sideline: relational shifts, collective identity, non-linearity, intersectional change, and the prevention of regressive outcomes. Rather than proposing a new framework, it offers practice-anchored insights into how collectives themselves understand, articulate, and navigate their journeys — and what this demands of those seeking to evaluate alongside them. The article contributes to ongoing debates about how evaluative thinking might be cultivated within and alongside collectives, rather than imposed upon them.