Endarkened Narrative Inquiry

Acknowledgements

Foreword: From Permission to Possibility

About the Author

Introduction: The Vulnerable, Empowered, and Spirit-Driven Endarkened Narrative

How to Engage This Book

A Word About Who This Book Is For

A Note on Language, Which Shapes How We See and Are Seen

1: When Women of Color Are Free, All People Move Toward Freedom

How We Got Here

Early Feminism and Women’s Liberation

Feminism and Women of Color: A Complicated Relationship

Endarkened Feminist Epistemology

Womanism

2: Transformative Love: Shaping the Endarkened Narrative

Narrative Inquiry

Storytelling as Cultural Practice

The Need for Culturally Situated Methodology

Methodological Framework and Constructed Spaces of Inquiry

Endarkened Narrative Tenets

Viola and Pamela’s Vulnerable, Empowered, and Spirit‑Driven Narratives as a Living Practice

A Life Lived in Testimony: Introducing Viola

Life Lived in the In‑Between: Introducing Pamela

Reflections on Viola and Pamela’s Narratives

3: Narrative as Data: Centering Trace-Making, Memory, and Meaning

Epistemological and Ethical Foundations for Culturally Situated Methods

Overview of Methods: Wisdom Whispers and Timelines

Wisdom Whispers

Power-Sharing and Researcher Positioning

Eliciting Wisdom Whispers through Artistic and Embodied Forms

The Treasure Box Method

Prompts for Wisdom Whispers

Timelines

Ethical Considerations for Vulnerable and Empowered Storytelling

Pamela’s Timeline: A Critical Moment

Improvising Ethical Responses

Improvisation to Heighten Creativity

A Note on Language

4: The Story within the Story: Making Meaning from the Margins

Narrative and Story: A Necessary Distinction

An Example: Black Women’s Negotiations of Spirituality and Sexuality

Narrative as Data: Endarkened Narrative Structure and Analytic Approach

Analytic Structure for Endarkened Narrative Inquiry

Life’s Lessons: Interconnected Aspects of Personhood

Sources of Strength and Barriers: Cultural, Spiritual, and Healing Traditions

Lives, Dreams, and Hopes: Relational Aspects of Experience

(Re)Presenting the Data through Vulnerable, Empowered, and Spirit-Driven Narratives

The Limitations of Bildungsroman

Vulnerable, Empowered, and Spirit-Driven Narratives

5: Reflexivity in Endarkened Narrative Inquiry

The Role of Reflexivity in Endarkened Narrative Inquiry

The Researcher as an Embodied Knower

Reflexivity in Endarkened Narrative Inquiry

Reflection and Reflexivity: Distinctions and Entanglements

How Endarkened Narrative Inquiry Deepens Reflexivity

Relational Reflexivity in Endarkened Narrative Inquiry

Embodied Reflexivity in Endarkened Narrative Inquiry

Relational and Embodied Experiences Represented

Creating Space for Relational Reflexivity

Expanding Reflexivity in Endarkened Narrative Inquiry

Reflexive Cycle for Endarkened Narrative Inquiry

Awareness

Relational Engagement

Spiritual and Cultural Integration

Critical Examination

Knowledge Transformation

Documentation and Integration

6: Love as an Agent of Justice through Endarkened Narrative Inquiry

The Tenets as Agents of Justice

What ENI Can Disrupt and Build

Methods for Data Collection and Analysis

This Work Is Not Finished

But Are Our Brothers Alright? An Open Invitation

Love as Praxis: A Closing Invitation

Index