Social‐Symbolic Work of Engaging Heterogeneous Communities: Participation Work and Entangled Effects on Organizations and Communities

Abstract Community participation is recognized as a crucial yet problematic element for addressing many issues in social development. Generating participation, however, is particularly challenging due to existing inequalities within heterogeneous communities, making it difficult for organizations to engage marginalized groups while letting go of their own control. We explore how organizations facilitate community participation through a qualitative comparative case study of two community radio stations in India. We find two approaches based on how organizations leverage three levels of influence: (1) open participation work leverages community members as audience and volunteers/staff by drawing on commonality between them. Furthermore, it defers decision making to community hierarchy; (2) protective participation work engages audience and volunteers/staff from marginalized groups, focusing on their differences from other community members, and defies community hierarchy in decision making. These two approaches led to contrasting outcomes: open participation work led to a pliable organization that invited the community in, but preserved community inequalities, and protective participation work led to a directive organization that restricted participation, but disrupted community inequalities. In unpacking these approaches, we extend the social‐symbolic work literature by theorizing how participation work creates entangled effects on the organization and community.