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ABSTRACT
A central component of the culture-centered approach is the co-development of communication infrastructures for health and wellbeing within subaltern communities. However, there is an absence in the representation of these infrastructures in esteemed journals. This is problematic for illuminating the tensions and complexities in bringing theory into practice from the perspective of community members. This study draws from two culture-centered projects to explore how communities make sense of the process of participating in building interventions, comprising 119 initial in-depth interviews with residents, 10 community advisory board focus groups, and 21 evaluative interviews. The residents’ narratives reveal a relationship between subalternity and distrust toward interventions delivered by providers outside of their community, emphasizing the need to create spaces of listening that anchor community relationships. The formation of relationships was crucial to the development of communication infrastructures, which continued beyond the study. The contributions to intercultural and international communication are discussed.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Formative interviews begin with FI, community advisory board focus groups began with AB, and evaluation interviews began with Eval, followed by the site code (HB denoting Highbury and GI denoting Glen Innes). The interview names ended with a unique number (we did not separate the members of the community advisory boards due to the nature of the focus group discussions).
2 The demographic information was not recorded for the participants in the advisory board focus groups or the evaluative interviews in Highbury.
3 Participants could identify as multiple ethnicities and occupations.