Origin Stories: How Stories of Founding in Small Texas Communities Reflect Current Relations

Abstract

As sociologist Robert Wuthnow suggests, small towns tell stories about their founding and history through annual celebrations and parades, preserved buildings, museums, and through stories. Such stories often tell us more about the present than the past. In this paper, we draw from a qualitative research study involving six small Texas communities to learn how community origin stories function for those who tell them, and how we can better understand communication design for those communities. Drawing on narrative theory in technical and professional communication, we find participants used origin stories to 1) market their community to tourists, presenting a cohesive and attractive image, 2) to explain current characteristics of the community, current attitudes, decisions, and even temperaments, and 3) to negotiate present contradictions and conflicts among themselves — specifically the historical injustices related to race and culture as they play out in the current community. We conclude with implications for conducting communication design research and practice in communities. Origin stories can be the starting point for helping communities to understand their decisions about how to project a community image to outsiders; to question received notions about how individuals behave in their communities; and to identify and confront historical injustices so they can begin to address inequities in the present.