Circles that Remember

Circles That Remember: How Culturally Responsive Evaluation Supports Bio# Community Design

Reimagining Evaluation Through Relationship

In the Bio# community, we understand that wisdom is not extracted—it is invited, witnessed, and lived. Brown and Di Lallo (2020) beautifully articulate this ethos in their exploration of Talking Circles as a culturally responsive evaluation method rooted in Indigenous knowledge and collective respect.

Where traditional evaluation often positions the “expert” above the community, Talking Circles shift the space. They center relational accountability, shared power, and listening with the whole body—principles that align deeply with our Bio# commitments to embodied integrity, physiological sovereignty, and soul-level witnessing.

1. From Evaluation to Reverence: The Circle as a Living System

“Circles are not just methods—they are medicines.”

Brown and Di Lallo show that Talking Circles honor each participant as a knowledge-holder. This mirrors how in Bio# work, each physiology holds a frequency, a way of knowing that no one else can replicate.

Instead of ranking truth, circles decentralize authority—just as we do in Bio# work, where each number’s perception is valid, essential, and incomplete without the others.

Application: In Bio# community building, circles can become living mirrors where Bio#3 listens for soul truths, Bio#6 tracks tone and timing, Bio#9 creates sacred neutrality—and all hold the field of shared emergence. This is something that has guided out community over the past year- it would be nice to see that continue.

2. Culturally Responsive = Physiology Responsive

The authors emphasize that culturally responsive evaluation:

Shifts power dynamics

Validates multiple ways of knowing

Leverages narrative and story over metrics

This directly supports the Bio# practice of physiology-based inclusion. What one Bio# finds safe or expressive (e.g., verbal processing for Bio#1 or Bio#7) may not work for others (e.g., inward reflection preferred by Bio#5 or Bio#9).

Application: Design circles with Bio# responsiveness:

Invite multiple expression formats: voice, writing, silence. Allow nonlinear timing and emotional cadence, as different Bio#s metabolize group dynamics differently

3. Evaluation as Ceremony: The Healing Frame

Brown and Di Lallo speak of circles not as data-collection tools, but as sacred spaces of witnessing, reciprocity, and collective meaning-making.

This echoes the sacred function of Bio# community work: we don’t just gather to “talk”—we gather to remember what is true, to re-pattern relational trauma, and to ground new forms of ethical leadership through body and story.

Application: Bio# gatherings can integrate ceremonial forms of evaluation: Begin with land acknowledgment and grounding Use story rounds to assess how programs impact embodiment, relationship, and community flow Close with a collective declaration or integration moment, naming what wants to carry forward.

4. Listening as Activation: From Silence to Signal

The article emphasizes that in circle practice, listening is not passive—it is an active, relational act. Every pause, every silence, every restated phrase holds meaning.

Application: Circle facilitators should track:

Who interrupts (and who gets interrupted)

Who translates others’ ideas (and whose words are lifted)

Who consistently restates, reframes, or silences

These subtle cues reveal unspoken power dynamics—and give Bio# facilitators the opportunity to interrupt the spiral of harm before it reinforces exclusion or dominance.

5. Shifting the Metrics: What Counts as "Valid"?

Brown and Di Lallo challenge the idea that knowledge must be quantifiable to be valid. In Bio# terms, we know that truth lives in pattern, resonance, coherence—not just in outcome.

Application: When evaluating Bio#-based programs, prioritize:

Qualitative feedback: What did people feel, shift, or embody?

Pattern recognition: What themes emerged across multiple Bio#s?

Narrative coherence: Did the group move toward clarity, trust, or shared embodiment?

These become our metrics of success—not attendance numbers or satisfaction surveys alone.

The Circle Is the Method and the Message

Talking Circles remind us: evaluation is not just a technical task—it is a relational ceremony. In Bio# community work, this means evaluating from within the physiology of trust, through the story of the group, and in honor of what we are co-creating beyond the metrics.

As Brown and Di Lallo write, the circle offers a space where “everything we need to know is already present—if we slow down and listen.”

We agree. That’s how Bio# works too.

Citation :

Brown, A. R., & Di Lallo, S. (2020). Talking circles: A culturally responsive evaluation practice. American Journal of Evaluation, 41(2), 264–278. https://doi.org/10.1177/1098214019888006