Switching gears a bit for today’s special episode, Nelle Lynn leads a conversation inspired by what she learned in her Qualitative Interviewing Linguistics class this semester. She breaks down ethnography, narrative inquiry, and phenomenology to explore what they actually mean, why they matter, and how these methods help us better understand our own stories, experiences, and the world around us.

This is Applications From the Ivory Tower (AFTIT) where we bridge theory and real life, unpacking how academic concepts can show up in everyday conversations and self-reflection. Join the discussion by liking, commenting, and sharing your thoughts - we want to hear how you see these ideas at work in your own life.

#BlackGirlBareMinimum #ApplicationsFromTheIvoryTower #QualitativeResearch #NarrativeInquiry #Ethnography #Phenomenology #PublicHumanities #BlackWomenPodcasters (00:00:41) Intro

(00:02:04) Ethnography

(00:06:00) Narrative Inquiry

(00:10:51) Phenomenology

(00:17:24) Why these methods are helpful

References that supported my scholarship:

Barkhuizen, G. (2016). A short story approach to analyzing teacher (imagined) identities over time. TESOL Quarterly, 50(3), 655–683. https://doi.org/10.1002/tesq.311

Consoli, S., & Darnault, B. (2025). Why is narrative inquiry suitable to study motivation? Insights from two empirical studies. Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/17501229.2025.2533984

Cook, S. R. (2024). New words, new lives: Employing interpretative phenomenological analysis integrated with strategies from ethnography in researching the lived experience of multilingualism and vulnerability in survivors of torture and modern slavery. Language and Intercultural Communication, 24(5), 395–411.

Ellison, J. (2013). The new public humanists. PMLA, 128(2), 289–298. https://doi.org/10.1632/pmla.2013.128.2.289

Gandbhir, G., Knowles, S., & Lee, S. (Directors). (2025). Katrina: Come Hell and High Water [Documentary series]. 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks; Message Pictures; Netflix.

Keles, B., McCrae, N., & Grealish, A. (2023). The beauty and the beast of social media. Current Psychology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-023-04271-3

Kennon, R. (2021). “In de Affica Soil”: Slavery, ethnography, and recovery in Zora Neale Hurston’s Barracoon: The Story of the “Last Black Cargo”. MELUS, 46(1), 75–104. https://doi.org/10.1093/melus/mlab003

McGregor, J., & Fernandez, J. (2019). Theorizing qualitative interviews: Two autoethnographic reconstructions. The Modern Language Journal, 103(1), 227–247.

Schroeder, R. (2020). The Rise of the Public Humanists. In S. Smulyan (Ed.), Doing Public Humanities (pp. 5–27). Routledge. 

Warner, M. (2002). Publics and Counterpublics. Zone Books.

Veliz, L., Gao, X., & Véliz-Campos, M. (2024). Racialised identities of multilingual teachers: Stories, experiences and agentic action of Indonesian teachers in Australian schools. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2024.2361718