Refraining a house of mirrors: Empowering community in a grassroots leadership program

Scholars assert that communities strengthen themselves by bringing residents together and mobilizing them to solve local problems. What communication practices enable individuals to act together for the common good? This paper uses a communication perspective to explore the development of a community leadership program in an economically troubled resort city in the northeastern United States. Combining the methods of participant observation, open‐ended interview, and collaborative dialogue, the author traces how the communication practices are used in the first year of a grassroots empowerment initiative. The article illustrates how meaning making and reframing enabled some group members to construct visions of a renewed city and imagine themselves as public leaders. It also identifies constraints encountered by the group as members tried to form connections and collaborate with one another.