New Series Vol. 2, No. 2
Fort Hancock, a growing community of about 1,000 people an hour south of El Paso, Texas, has been occupied for generations. The town is 97% Hispanic and is located in Hudspeth County, one of the USA’s least densely populated counties (3,300 people across 4,500 square miles). Official flood data (most recently compiled in 1985!) showed minimal instances of flooding, but even small amounts of rain cause flash flooding in Fort Hancock. The Texas legislature funded the Digital Risk Infrastructure Pilot (DRIP) program to bridge the gap between highly technical flood models and the ways rural communities could use data for flood awareness, community improvement and infrastructure funding requests if only data useful to anyone existed.
Scholars from the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University decided to use a “co-creation and power-sharing approach to community involvement,” in which academics and community members would together collect photos, videos, and narratives to create a community-driven flood map. Official flood data typically uses only hydrologic and hydraulic models, requiring special training about flooding and software such as Geographic Information Systems (GIS). These may not be a problem in some wealthier cities, but Fort Hancock is a low SES community that lacks such resources. The county executive (“judge” in Texas) identified this as a barrier to her applying for infrastructure funding such as the 2021 Infrastructure and Investment Jobs Act.
Scholars and community volunteers were divided into two primary groups: technical experts who would develop flood data products, and field communication researchers who focused on community engagement. The Stephens et al. article defines “co-creation” as “part of a critical cultural dimension of practice, which means that the intervention pays attention to issues of power within human systems and is concerned with equity, voice, and cultural processes in meaning-making and action.” The result is research that serves everyone’s interests and facilitates change while taking local culture into account. The Institutional Review Board approving the project’s methods and goals recommended “informed consent and treat[ing] the interviews and map-related conversations with the county leaders, data collectors, and community members as” as research, while collecting photos and videos would be treated as a “community project.” Still, the team said it would not accept any images that contained people. The first step was to “listen, learn, and co-create ways” to gather needed data, not learning technical tools. Residents eagerly shared photos and narratives about flooding in their area.
Much had changed since the 1985 federal flood mapping of Fort Hancock. The population had grown from 200 to 1000, yet was still a colonia characterized by dirt roads, and having limited access to clean drinking water, safe wastewater disposal, and high-speed internet. Water paths coming down nearby mountains had changed and expanded; residents described flood prone areas as arroyos—dry creek beds. “When this area receives only an inch of rain in a couple of hours, their dirt roads turn into mud pits, bridges wash away, fences are knocked down, people are trapped in their homes for days, and homes and property are damaged.” Four community members took new photos on iPhone6 cellphones, which they could easily use. The community-engagement specialists had a Spanish-speaking leader, and everyone involved could communicate with each other via a WhatsApp group. While team members used maps to record information, they also corrected inaccuracies in maps based on their first-hand knowledge.
The scholars concluded that the project helped community members feel like they belonged and are valued, and that their community’s flooding challenges have been made visible. These academics also made six recommendations to other communities wanting to pursue a co-created field initiative: “Let the community be the expert on their needs. Let the community define the value of the project in their own words. Allow the pace of the fieldwork activities to respect the culture of the community partners. Set aside adequate resources to support the community in equitable ways. Provide opportunities for community members to learn new skills and to lead. The communication field research team and the technology development team must work closely together, build trust, and step into interdisciplinarity.”
The scholars write, “Building an environmental representation of community needs driven by evidence of flooding could be helpful when the state and federal agencies develop more current flood maps of Fort Hancock.” But they also granted, “We cannot promise that funding agencies will accept the image-based flood map and image data our team generated as sufficient for providing resources.”
Communication Currents Discussion Questions
- Can you identify someone in your life who works in a career for social good (e.g., teachers, healthcare workers, first responders)? How do you see Coercion of Social Responsibility influencing their experiences or career choices? How might Coercion of Social Responsibility apply to your own career aspirations or current job? How do societal power dynamics (e.g., gender norms, economic priorities) shape the roles and responsibilities expected of professionals in careers for social good?
- Consider your own views on teaching or other professions. How might you, consciously or unconsciously, contribute to narratives that deskill these roles? How might narratives about these roles influence public perception and what are (potential) consequences of public perception that diminishes the value of these professions?
- Are there issues you feel passionate about that might benefit from collective action? How could you start building alliances to address these issues? What lessons about collective action and advocacy can we learn from the 2018 Oklahoma teacher walkout and how can we apply these lessons to address other social issues?
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Keri K. Stephens is professor in organizational communication technology, a distinguished teaching professor, and co-director of the Technology and Information Policy Institute; Samanta Varela Castro is a postdoctoral researcher; and Yifan Xu is a graduate researcher, all at the University of Texas at Austin.
Andrew Juan is associate research scientist and Russell Blessing is manager of research projects, both at Institute for a Disaster Resilient Texas; Nicholas Diaz is a PhD candidate; and Samuel D. Brody is professor of marine and coastal environmental science, all at Texas A&M University at Galveston.
This essay, by Dane S. Claussen, translates the scholarly journal article, Keri K. Stephens, Samanta Varela Castro, Yifan Xu, Andrew Juan, Nicholas Diaz, Russell Blessing, and Samuel D. Brody (2024). Rectifying a flood data desert one step at a time: A co-created, engaged scholarship approach. Journal of Applied Communication Research 52(3), 421-434. https://doi.org/10.1080/00909882.2024.2357131
2025 National Communication Association
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