Reimagining civic engagement: a narrative inquiry into Block Talks and community storytelling in Topeka, Kansas

Abstract

Civic engagement is commonly measured through measures of formal participation, such as meeting attendance, voting records, and public comments. This approach is flawed, as the use of such measures is rooted in an assumption that participation is equally accessible, obscuring the structural, relational, and emotional barriers that shape who is able to engage in practice. This dissertation examines how civic engagement is experienced and enacted within Block Talks, a neighborhood-based civic practice in Topeka, Kansas. This practice emerged in response to community-identified concerns related to safety, trust, and access, designed to create accessible, relationship-centered spaces for storytelling and collective dialogue outside of formal institutional settings. Grounded in leadership communication and community-engaged scholarship, the study conceptualizes civic engagement as a relational and communicative process rather than a measurable outcome. Using narrative inquiry, it draws on narrative interviews with Block Talk hosts, participating neighbors, and community partners—as well as participant observations, analytic memos, and community-generated materials—to answer four overarching research questions: (1) How do participants experience and make meaning of civic engagement within Block Talks? (2) How does leadership emerge from relationships among hosts, neighbors, and community partners in Block Talks? (3) How does storytelling shape leadership, participation, and civic agency within Block Talks? and (4) What tensions and limitations shape leadership and participation within neighborhood-based civic engagement practices? Across five analytic claims, the findings articulate the dynamics underlying Block Talks in a context where traditional civic spaces have been experienced as extractive or inaccessible, while tensions related to safety concerns, emotional labor, and sustainability have complicated neighborhood-based engagement efforts. The first claim asserts that storytelling created the relational conditions—mutual trust, recognition, and presence—that made it possible for leadership to emerge. The second claim, framing leadership as something rooted in dialogue rather than directive authority, presents it as collective sensemaking, by which community members gradually constructed shared understandings of community concerns. The third claim reveals how leadership practices exhibited adaptiveness, shifting amid heightened fear and safety concerns toward an approach rooted in subtlety, pacing, and the avoidance of pressure. The fourth claim centers on leadership as boundary work and power negotiation, revealing how it was enacted through community-first facilitation practices. The final claim clarifies that leadership did not only emerge in Block Talks to address crises and tensions; it also arose in ongoing practices of care, coordination, and collective action. This study contributes to leadership communication scholarship by documenting the practice of civic engagement in Block Talks as a lived, relational practice and, in turn, by demonstrating the value of narrative inquiry in examining informal civic processes. By centering community storytelling and neighborhood-based engagement, the dissertation challenges dominant institutional definitions of participation and offers an alternative understanding of civic agency grounded in lived experience.