This paper draws from an ongoing oral history project with Black, Indigenous and Person of Color (BIPOC) entrepreneurs in Metro Detroit navigating the personal and professional traumas of the COVID-19 pandemic.
1. A Mosaic of Researcher “Back-Stories”
and Oral History “Front-Stories”:
Unpacking BIPOC Entrepreneurs’
Resilience amid the Pandemic
Rahul Mitra1
Allison Lucas2
Sheryl Johnson-Fambro
Claire Van Raaphorst
Shelby Lasky
Corresponding Author Emails:
1rahul.mitra@wayne.edu 2arlucas@wayne.edu
2. Agenda
• The (Very) Short Version
• Context and Goal(s)
• Mosaic-Making, or “Method”
• Narrative Patterns that Emerged
• Research Designs to
Contemplate
3. The (Very) Short Version
• This paper draws from an ongoing oral history
project with Black, Indigenous and Person of Color
(BIPOC) entrepreneurs in Metro Detroit navigating
the personal and professional traumas of the
COVID-19 pandemic.
• We blend narrative “tiles” from these oral histories
with our own lived experiences to demonstrate the
emergent “patterns” that connect us.
• By connecting the back-stories of our multiracial
research team with the front-stories of the
entrepreneurs, we co-create a pluri-vocal mosaic
of resilience storytelling amid this pandemic.
4. Context
• BIPOC entrepreneurs often lack access to traditional business
resources, knowledge and networks (Bates et al., 2018; Gill, 2014; Hasecki et
al., 2020), and pandemic relief efforts like the Paycheck Protection
Program (PPP) have also largely excluded them (Beer, 2020).
• BIPOC entrepreneurs are deeply rooted in ethnic enclaves for
customers, employees, education, capital and other resources.
Given COVID-19’s disproportionate impact on communities of
color, BIPOC entrepreneurs in turn have been impacted far worse
than white small business owners (Farrell, Wheat, & Mac, 2020).
• BIPOC entrepreneurs nevertheless play a crucial role in shaping
the socioeconomic and cultural fabric of the nation, ensuring
employment and social mobility for millions, and providing access
to key good/services to underserved communities (Guzmán, 2016; Lewis,
2018; Jennings, 2017; Jones, 2017)
5. Our Goal(s)
• The broader ResiliENT Project: To highlight the
innovative ways BIPOC entrepreneurs in Metro Detroit
are weathering the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, so that we
may help design more inclusive entrepreneurial support
structures to enhance their resilience.
• This paper: To highlight the fragmented yet
interconnected ways in which collective sensemaking
of resilience may occur, intertwining both researcher
and participant subjectivities.
6. Mosaic-Making, or “Method”
• Inspired by postmodern (auto)ethnographies (Cushman, 2002; Goodall, 2000)
that center (dis)junctures of lived experience, even as they encourage
readers to move “back” and “forth,” from considering the researchers’
role and design choices, to the eventual story being told about the social
phenomena and characters.
• Also influenced by “new materialisms” (Fox & Alldred, 2017; Sundberg, 2014;
Tompkins, 2016), in that we ground our process of knowing/researching
BIPOC entrepreneurs’ stories of resilience in the material cultures and
places that (in)form us, as well as in the affective responses they invoke.
• Conducted 1-2 hr long oral histories with BIPOC entrepreneurs in Metro
Detroit (9 till date), and then each of us wrote reflexive essays on these
experiences, from research design to interviewing process.
7. Mosaic-Making, contd.
1) How did you find and why did you select the
person for an interview? How do/did you relate to
this person? What is the nature of your ties to
him/her/them?
2) What stood out most for you during the
interview? Can you recall what was going through
your mind as the participant was speaking? How
did you feel after the interview was concluded?
3) How have you been impacted by the pandemic
in your personal and professional life? What has
helped you navigate the past few months?
• We identified in the oral histories key narrative events, or
“tiles” that act as building blocks for broader shapes and
patterns. Tiles can be in varying hues, sometimes
reinforcing each other while at other times reflecting deep
contrasts.
• Our essays then built on the affective complexities of these
tiles, usually settling on a single “front-end” oral history per
researcher “back story.” These stories were themselves
guided by a set of self-reflexive prompts (see left) that
encouraged us to trace how our stories connected with and
yet diverged from the lived realities of oral history
narrators.
• Examining the essays allowed us to identify specific
narrative “patterns” that speak to the process of resilience
storytelling for our narrators (and ourselves).
8. Narrative Patterns that Emerged
Resilience
Storytelling
Swinging into
Action
Coming Face-
to-Face with
Privilege
Finding
Helping
Hands
Dare to Be
Changing in-
Place
9. Dare to Be
To be empowered and inspired to
live authentically and to encourage
others to do the same, but with
that comes the complicated
recognition that this in itself is a
privilege that is not afforded
equally to everyone.
“As I watched him speak, I realized how his identity
had played an integral role in his entrepreneurial
venture, both inspiring him to create the business in
the first place and subsequently guiding its mission.
As he put it, “‘DARE to be /Yer’self/,’ the message
doesn’t only speak to me, right, being a black gay
man? ‘Dare to be yourself’ speaks to anyone.”...
Nevertheless, when Black Lives Matter protests
flooded the country during the summer of 2020, and
Ty sought to use his brand to stand up to white
supremacy, he came up against stiff institutional
resistance. It became painfully clear that a lucrative
corporate collaboration fell through because of his
support for BLM—a cause that was integral to his
very being.”
10. Changing in-Place
As their environment changes,
entrepreneurs must change as well to
respond effectively and still remain
relevant. But vital to this evolution is a
deep appreciation for their roots in-
place - honoring the relational and
material practices that have nourished
them in the past and will do so again.
“The success of Toney’s cozy, family-owned
cultural center reflects the resilience of this city
and neighborhood. That is not to imply similar
stories are not happening throughout Detroit’s
200-plus neighborhoods during this pandemic.
My city—and Toney’s business—will both
change through (and along with) changes
shaped by demographics and economics… but
as long as they are nurtured from the deep
wells of struggle and opportunity,
they will thrive.”
11. Research Designs to Contemplate
• Our mosaic-based storytelling approach highlights the tensional
push-and-pull processes underlying resilience for BIPOC
entrepreneurs, who must deal with not only the personal and
professional traumas of COVID-19 but also with the structural
inequities of race, gender, class and geography that permeate
American life.
• Our paper uses storytelling about the stories BIPOC entrepreneurs
recount to steel themselves amidst such adversity. This “meta”
approach to resilience storytelling encourages one to put yourself in
the Other’s place and can potentially provoke empathy - a deeply
affective and emotive response, in line with the goals of “new”
ethnography and “new materialisms.” At the same time, we must be
careful that we do not supplant the voice of the Other.
• Thus, a Public Humanities (Brooks, 2014) approach that envisages
community-academic collaborations, public events, and both digital
and analog research-products (e.g., workshops, policy briefs,
websites/archives) that are freely accessible beyond university library
systems becomes important to consider.
