ABSTRACT
The complexities of health-related communication research and practice in community and with community are the foci of this chapter. As scholars and members of multiple communities, some marginalized and some not, we are committed to the ideology and principles of community-based health communication scholarship that we will describe in these pages. Because of these commitments, we begin with a narrative describing a community-based health communication strategy that fell short of these commitments. Our purpose in this narrative of failure is not to discourage community-based collaborative scholarship. Rather, we hope it illustrates how readily and unconsciously privilege may be enacted and marginalization experienced in such efforts. While we each have stories to tell, one of Leigh’s experiences with hantavirus prevention education in the U.S.-Mexico border region (USMBR) follows.
