Episode 4 Shownotes:The personal story as ‘data’ : Ethnography and public scholarship
Episode 4: The personal story as ‘data’: Ethnography and public scholarship
Recorded April 4, 2025, 9pm.
Music cred: DanAndPhilBEATS. Track: A Good Stretch
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Michelle: Ariel, it’s your episode!!
Ariel: That’s true and honestly it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. But it was still strange to spend a full episode really talking about my research.
Michelle: I really enjoyed it. What was strange about it to you?
Ariel: It was hard to figure out where to start from. Like, how to get into what it is that I am interested in writing about or researching without starting way back and telling my life story. Hopefully there wasn’t too much of that.
Michelle: …God forbid you tell your life story on your own podcast?
Ariel: Well, I mean for the hour or whatever - like how to succinctly get to the point. (laughs)
Michelle: Which, unfortunately for you, begs the question: What is…The Point?
Ariel: What is The Point, seriously. Of life, of any of it (Michelle don’t roll your eyes at me!). But I guess the point for this episode is really to set the stage for other conversations we are having and will have more of down the road. I think that people need to understand who we both are (not like they haven’t by now).
Michelle: You know, because we’ve been working on this project since December 2024 I think we forget that we’re still really early on in the podcast – this is just episode 4.
Ariel: I know, it feels like we’ve been at it much longer. But yes, episode 4 here we are.
Michelle: I also think – and maybe this is just because I have a lot of interests and also a poor sense of self – that it’s really difficult to succinctly describe who you are, what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and why it matters to you. Like just because we exist in job markets where that cleanliness is expected doesn’t mean that it is realistic or straightforward to do? Especially when it relates to the nature of your work; you’ve always been very holistic in my mind.
Ariel: I think that is something maybe that is needed in the work I do - to really see the big picture; or rather, the small story and the small experience within the big picture.
Michelle: On that note, did you want to give a little primer about what it’s about?
Ariel: Yes, so in this episode I talk about my thesis which is really about how I came to uncover and explore a past part of my own family’s history - specifically my father’s family and their experience during World War II. I talk about how I happened upon this as a topic for a thesis in applied linguistics and the issues around language and identity loss. It was such a complex and multi-layered research project, which is in part family history and in part linguistic mystery, and in part horrific childhood and human trauma. So there was just a lot to unpack during the research and writing process and it was hard to succinctly talk about it from start to finish.
Michelle: Well let it be known that I think you did a great job with this episode. I’ve been telling folks on the fence about listening to our podcast to wait for episode 4 to come out.
Ariel: Who could possibly be on the fence about listening to our podcast?!
Michelle: Yeah you tell ‘em!
Season 1 of the Apprentice Dialogues is themed around public scholarship and creativity. In this episode, we really get the chance to expand on the importance of the personal story and what role it plays in questioning ivory tower hierarchies.
Also, we think this episode is really funny.
