New Series, Vol. 2, No. 21
Community participation is an essential component of democracy, yet gaps in participation persist due to unequal distribution of resources that disenfranchise historically marginalized groups and in turn weaken the community’s overall representativeness. This study applied sensemaking, specifically constructs of sensegiving and sensebreaking to understand community participation among and with predominantly South Asian immigrants in a grassroots initiative to resist the establishment of a gas compressor station. Immigrants in this community were well-educated and financially privileged, but mostly first-generation and with green card statuses that left them legally vulnerable, which sometimes influenced their participation. Moreover, previous scholars have acknowledged that although community participation is portrayed as empowering, it can also function tyrannically and that this rhetoric can obscure underlying inequities and power imbalances.
Community participation has multiple definitions (e.g., formal versus informal), is shaped by individual and shared meanings, but is also often defined practically in a way that supports the agenda of a given dominant group within a community, and nonparticipation is frowned upon. This study sought to better acknowledge the role of immigration status, intercultural norms, and other legal challenges to offer practical takeaways for understanding, planning, and enhancing community-based participation and how immigrants negotiate and make sense of their identity and involvement.
Sensemaking is a theoretical perspective that seeks to illuminate discourse and reasoning which occur after some significant event such as a change, crisis, or disruption to a normal routine and is typically applied in organizational contexts. Sensegiving describes attempts by organizational or community members to influence and (re)define meanings for others. Sensebreaking on the other hand is the process of breaking down existing meanings so that new meaning can be generated.
The authors specifically sought to determine how community stakeholders used sensegiving and sensebreaking while leading community resistance efforts in immigrant communities and how sensegiving and sensebreaking enabled immigrants to generate (new) meanings of democratic participation. To answer these research questions, 21 interviews with community members who were involved in a coordinated effort to oppose the establishment of a gas compressor station in their multicultural neighborhood located in a blue (i.e., Democrat-majority) state. The interviews ranged from 30 to 110 minutes and lasted an average of 45 minutes in duration. Sample homogeneity and self-selection bias were noted as limitations of this study.
When planning community participation, stakeholders would use sensegiving strategies of face-to-face communication, personalized outreach, education about the issue at hand and community participation more broadly, and providing support to encourage participation from community members who were immigrants. Community leaders particularly emphasized the importance of making both access to information and specific participation tasks as easeful as possible for community members and also of being as accommodating as possible to all identities each community member brought to the table (e.g., immigration, parenthood, professional).
Both community leaders and other community members participated in sensebreaking. Community leaders talked specifically about sensebreaking assumptions that immigrants could not engage in community participation and (re)defining what participation really meant (e.g., modified and informal forms of participation). In addition to personalized face-to-face outreach, community leaders also engaged in sensebreaking on social media, but saw social media as more conducive to informational efforts rather than actually motivating participation. There were also concerns about message fatigue when using social media for community resistance efforts. Hypotheticals, narratives, and explicitly discussing identity struggles were other sensebreaking devices that community members employed around community participation highlighting the emotional element of these communication processes.
Practically, this investigation highlights that community resistance efforts must be shaped collectively by community members themselves if it is to be successful and thus sensegiving and sensebreaking are necessary in planning community participation, especially when community members are disenfranchised. Second, this study also highlights the importance of informal forms of community participation and their ability to sustain momentum and give life to resistance movements. Lastly, these findings assert the effectiveness of personalized communication outreach efforts, particularly in diverse communities.
Communication Currents Discussion Questions
- Can you think of a time in school, work, or your personal life when you had to “make sense” of a sudden change? What helped you understand it? Sensegiving means trying to shape how others understand a situation. Have you ever seen a leader, teacher, or peer do this effectively (or not)? What communication strategies did they use?
- Think about a time when you tried to get involved in a community, group, or organization. What factors made it easier or harder for you to participate? How might cultural norms or expectations shape what “participation” looks like in different communities?
- The essay says community participation can be “empowering” but also “tyrannical.” What do you think that means? Can you think of an example where participation was expected or pressured rather than empowering?
For additional suggestions about how to use this and other Communication Currents in the classroom, see: https://www.natcom.org/publications/communication-currents/integrating-communication-currents-classroom
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Subrabhi Sahay is an Associate Professor and Program Chair in the Corporate Communication Department at Pennsylvania State University, Abington.
Maria Dwyer is a Part-Time Faculty Member of the School of Communication and Information at Rutgers University – New Brunswick.
This essay, by R. E. Purtell, translates the scholarly journal article, S. Sahay & M. Dwyer (2025). Navigating immigrant identity in community resistance efforts through sensegiving and sensebreaking. Communication and Democracy. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/27671127.2025.2548593
The full copyright and private policy link is available at natcom.org/privacy-policy/
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