Environmental Sociology

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The sociology of emotions in a contested

environmental illness case: how gender and the
sense of community contribute to conflict

Ginger Jacobson

To cite this article: Ginger Jacobson (2016) The sociology of emotions in a contested
environmental illness case: how gender and the sense of community contribute to conflict,
Environmental Sociology, 2:3, 238-253

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2016.1221169

Published online: 03 Oct 2016.

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Environmental Sociology, 2016
Vol. 2, No. 3, 238–253, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2016.1221169

The sociology of emotions in a contested environmental illness case: how gender and the sense of
community contribute to conflict
Ginger Jacobson*
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Nazareth College, Rochester, USA
(Received 19 July 2015; accepted 3 August 2016)

Communities often experience contention when confronted with environmental threats and diverging interpretations of risk.
Contested illness research often describes the emotional expression of individuals without analyzing how these emotions
connect to larger social factors such as sense of community, gender, and assumptions about an emotion–logic dichotomy.
This research incorporates the sociology of emotion to explore how the social construction of emotions influences
dissension in a contested illness case. I investigate the case of The Acreage, Florida where a cancer cluster was established
but an environmental cause was not found. This paper discusses how the sense of community and gender role expectations
gave rise to expressions of fear, anger, and grief using data drawn from 57 in-depth interviews of current and former
residents of The Acreage. Findings suggest that disparate ‘feeling rules’ related to one’s sense of community, perceptions of
what neighbors feel, and gendered notions of emotion and logic contribute to community dissension. This paper thus
identifies conditions that give rise to divergent emotional experiences and expressions that exacerbate community
dissension.
Keywords: contested illness; emotion; environmental risk; sense of community; gender

The era of modernity creates an insulating sphere in which
the normative lifestyle is ignorant to environmental risk
unless a particular hazard tangibly intrudes into one’s life
(Edelstein 2004). Therefore, communities that confront
environmental threats from human or technologically-
caused environmental hazards (such as industrial produc-
tion or disposal practices) reconcile with startling health
possibilities and experience stressful conflict, often invol-
ving claims that evoke emotion (Kroll-Smith and Couch
1990; Edelstein 2004; Freudenburg 1997; Picou, Marshall,
and Gill 2004; Shriver, Adams, and Messer 2014). Claims
about the knowledge of and responsibility for environmen-
tal threats and illnesses may generate fear, anxiety, and
perceptions of injustice (Edelstein 2004; Gunter and Kroll-
Smith 2007). Contested illness research on these commu-
nities often describes emotional expressions of residents
(Blum 2008; Brown and Mikkelsen 1990; Edelstein 2004;
Freudenburg and Gramling 1994; Kroll-Smith and Couch
1990; Levine 1982; Picou, Marshall, and Gill 2004), and
indicates the psychosocial effects of loss and trauma asso-
ciated with environmental contamination of the commu-
nity (Edelstein 2004; Erikson 1976; Gleser, Green, and
Winget 1981; Goodman, Vaughn, and Gill 1992; Ritchie,
Gill, and Picou 2011). However, contested environmental
illness research has rarely sought to directly analyze how
social factors of emotions, such as sense of community or
gender, contribute to community dissension. In this paper,
I integrate the sociology of emotions into a contested
environmental illness case in a South Florida community
in order to highlight how the social construction of emo-
tions contributes to conflict.
Emotions arise from social patterns such as the content
and outcome of an interaction, the type of social relation-
ships involved, and norms and values (Bericat 2016).
Emotions motivate individuals to take action and mobilize
around an issue (Ferree and Merrill 2000; DiEnno and
Thompson 2013). Therefore, it is important to understand
the social construction of emotions, the conditions that give
rise to emotional expressions, and how the combination of
these may result in community conflict regarding environ-
mental health threats. This paper focuses on the social
experience of emotions, which is distinct from emotion-
focused coping research that focuses on the psychosocial
health of individuals as they respond to threats to the envir-
onment (Brown and Mikkelsen 1990; Edelstein 2004;
Rochford and Blocker 1991; Vandermoere 2008). This
paper points to reasons why emotional expressions contri-
bute to community tensions. What social dynamics contri-
bute to residents’ emotional expressions as well as the
consequences of these expressions in a contested illness
case? I demonstrate how the sense of community, gender,
and assumptions about an emotion–logic dichotomy con-
tribute to divisive emotional expressions in a community
experiencing a contested environmental illness case.
This paper begins by reviewing the relevant literatures,
followed by a description of a pediatric cancer cluster in
The Acreage, Florida, the method of collecting 57 in-depth
semi-structured interviews from current and former

*Email: gjacobs9@naz.edu

© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group


residents, and the process of analyzing the data. Then, I
present the findings from this case study. I conclude by
emphasizing the findings in the discussion by tying
together ‘feeling rules’, perceptions of neighbors’ feelings,
sense of community, and gender in contested illness
research.
Contested illness
Contested illness battles occur when communities con-
front the consequences of either known or unknown
environmental contamination. Contestation often arises
because of uncertainty surrounding the cause of illness.
Citizens then rely upon technical information and expert
knowledge to clarify uncertainties (Edelstein 2004;
Freudenburg and Pastor 1992; Messer, Shriver, and
Kennedy 2010). The ‘invisibility’ of many environmen-
tal contaminants increases reliance on scientific evalua-
tions to identify a link to illness (Kroll-Smith, Couch,
and Levine 2002; Messer, Shriver, and Kennedy 2010).
However, scientific testing and knowledge is sometimes
unable to unequivocally establish a link between con-
taminants and a known illness, creating ‘etiological
uncertainty’ or ‘ambiguity of harm’, often leading to
divergent interpretations of environmental illness risks
(Edelstein 2004; Gunter and Kroll-Smith 2007; Messer,
Shriver, and Kennedy 2010; Shriver and Kennedy 2005;
Vyner 1988). Uncertainties of a diagnosed illness and its
connection to environmental harm may give way to
frustration and anger, and increase stress (Edelstein
2004).
Uncertainty and a lack of expert definition may create
vertical or horizontal disputes. Vertical disputes occur
when residents armed with local and experiential knowl-
edge battle with credentialed experts, whereas horizontal
disputes occur only among residents within a community
(Gunter and Kroll-Smith 2007). In some cases, citizens
suspect that environmental hazards cause symptoms of
illnesses that have not yet been recognized by the medical
institution, so that doctors are unable to legitimize patient
concerns with a diagnosis, nor a link to environmental
hazards (Edelstein 2004). Therefore, contested illness bat-
tles are sometimes a fight for the institutionalization of an
illness previously unrecognized (Brown et al. 2001).
Furthermore, in a vertical dispute, if citizens perceive
that governing bodies have failed to ensure their right to
a healthy environment, they may express anger and react
collectively (Edelstein 2004; Freudenburg 1993; Gunter
and Kroll-Smith 2007). Citizens sometimes respond to
perceived injustice with a ‘popular epidemiology’
approach of collecting and disseminating information sup-
porting their experience and claims that environmental
contamination is linked to illness. Citizens use popular
epidemiology with the goal of challenging claims from
government agencies and scientists in order to impel an
official response to environmental threats (Brown 1993,
2013; Fischer 2000; Pellow 2003; Potts 2004). In this way,
popular epidemiology attempts to reduce the power
Environmental Sociology 239
imbalance as citizens use supporting data to strengthen
their claims against more powerful institutions.
Concerns about environmental health threats may dis-
rupt positive feelings regarding one’s community or home.
Public disputes over environmental threats may cause
property values to decrease, making it difficult for people
to sell their homes and move out of the area. Governing
bodies concerned about the potential costs of investigating
environmental risks may deny citizen requests for reloca-
tion, environmental testing, or medical assistance
(Edelstein 2004; Shriver and Kennedy 2005), contributing
to psychological stress and creating a ‘secondary trauma’
(Ritchie, Gill, and Picou 2011). Those who experience a
great loss of life and dislocation may experience individual
and collective trauma, in which the latter is shared by a
group of people (Goodman, Vaughn, and Gill 1992).
Erikson (1976) calls the ruptured bond between neighbors
and place a ‘loss of communality’. Particularly in
instances of man-made disasters, residents may also feel
a distressing loss of vitality and trust, resulting in depres-
sion, despair, and alienation (Cornwell 2003; Erikson
1976; Gleser, Green, and Winget 1981; Goodman,
Vaughn, and Gill 1992). Edelstein (2004) observes an
‘inversion of home’ in contested illness cases when resi-
dents experience a reversal of both psychological and
financial securities. The traditional association of home
as a private space of security, identity, and control over
an area of land changes into a place of danger, fear, and
insecurity (Edelstein 2004; Goodman, Vaughn, and Gill
1992).
Extant research commonly describes the emotional
expressions of residents, such as frustration and animosity,
in response to environmental threats as a way to demon-
strate community tensions (Blum 2008; Brown and
Mikkelsen 1990; Edelstein 2004; Freudenburg and
Gramling 1994; Kroll-Smith and Couch 1990; Levine
1982; Picou, Marshall, and Gill 2004; Shriver and
Kennedy 2005). Yet, sociological analysis of these emo-
tions is rarely the focus of inquiry. For example,
Freudenburg and Gramling (1994) studied various factors
of offshore drilling in case studies from Louisiana and
California. They describe individuals as ‘choked with
emotion’ as they spoke to officials from the US
Department of Interior who have ‘learned not to show
much in the way of emotion when they were presiding
over a public hearing’ (Freudenburg and Gramling 1994,
3). The authors noted ‘a great outpouring of human emo-
tion’ (Freudenburg and Gramling 1994, 4) in political
demonstrations, but did not further analyze what social
factors caused these emotions, or how they were received
by onlookers or officials. Similarly, Kroll-Smith and
Couch (1990) describe the emotional expressions of resi-
dents in response to an ongoing mine fire underground.
They do so largely through emotion-driven mobilization
strategies such as ‘confrontational coping’ in which one
group of residents ‘relied on emotional displays of anger
to dramatize the danger and to confront others with their
moral responsibility towards victims of the fire’ (Kroll-
240 G. Jacobson
Smith and Couch 1990, p.73). However, their analysis is
focused on the effects that a chronic technological disaster
(as opposed to a natural disaster) has on the cohesion of a
community rather than the significance of emotional
expressions or breaching emotion management for mobi-
lization purposes.
Previous literature has also examined the stress of
living near an environmental hazard as a psychosocial
effect (Edelstein 2004). Researchers have identified other
psychological effects such as depression, demoralization,
and anxiety in contested illness cases (Erikson 1976;
Gleser, Green, and Winget 1981; Goodman, Vaughn, and
Gill 1992). Research indicates that residents may experi-
ence feelings of isolation (Shriver, Adams, and Messert
2014), stress from litigation (Picou, Marshall, and Gill
2004), and ‘loss of communality’ and psychological secur-
ity (Erikson 1976; Shriver and Kennedy 2005). The
sociology of emotion offers a deeper analysis of why
emotions arise in these community conflicts, how emo-
tional expressions are perceived, and the resulting conse-
quences for community cohesion.
Sociology of emotion
It is important to understand how factors such as power,
collective action, role identity, and gender role expecta-
tions may contribute to an individual’s emotional experi-
ences and therefore their cognitive decisions regarding
environmental health threats. At the individual level, emo-
tions may be a factor in individual environmental risk
assessment. Although many still believe antiquated claims
that processes of emotion and logic are independent, we
now know that emotion and cognition overlap neurologi-
cally as mental functions controlled by separate but inter-
acting brain systems (Francis 2006; LeDoux 1996;
Wetherell 2012). People use emotion to help interpret,
summarize, and organize information (DiEnno and
Thompson 2013; Vining, Tyler, and Kweon 2000). For
example, the ‘affect heuristic model’ contends that people
use affect, feeling, intuition, or emotion as shortcuts to
guide risk assessment (Finucane et al. 2000; Lupton 2013).
These micro-level processes are influenced by larger social
forces.
At the macrosociological level, researchers have stu-
died the significance of emotions in relation to medical
care (Mark 2005; Obling 2013; Thoits 2004), gender
(Brody 1997; Fabes and Martin 1991; Fischer 1993;
Shields et al. 2006), health (Francis 2006), and social
movements (Adams 2003; Jasper 2011, 2014). Such pre-
vious research explains how emotions influence behavior
while illuminating the connection between individual feel-
ings, expressions of emotion, social structure, and cultural
expectations (Beatty 2013; Francis 2006). The experience,
meaning, display, and regulation of emotions are socially
constructed (Bericat 2016; Thoits 2004). Social rules
apply to feelings and emotions by offering informal guide-
lines for which emotions we are expected to experience,
express, and when it is appropriate to do so, generating
‘feeling rules’ (Hochschild 1979). Individuals perform
emotion management in order to follow the ‘feeling
rules’. Emotion management occurs by inducing or inhi-
biting feelings in order to display the emotions appropriate
for certain situations (Hochschild 1983). Therefore,
expressions of emotions and reactions to them are socially
and culturally tempered (Davidson and Milligan 2004;
Davidson et al. 2008; Hochschild 1979; Lupton 2013;
Wetherell 2012), and a focus on emotions permits an
understanding of the social relationships and
circumstances.
Emotional expression indicates one’s power and status
in the social hierarchy (Bericat 2016; Francis 2006;
Kemper 2006; Lovaglia and Houser 1996; Shields et al.
2006). While power is the ability and competence to
control rewards and punishments, resources, and influence
others, a person’s status in the social hierarchy is deter-
mined through the perceptions of others on the basis of
respect and prominence (Anderson and Thompson 2004;
Conway, DiFazio, and Mayman 1999; Keltner, Gruenfeld,
and Anderson 2003; Shields et al. 2006). Displays of
distress commonly indicate a lack of power or status
(Conway, DiFazio, and Mayman 1999; Cornwell 2003;
Francis 2006).
Fear and anger are both indications of power. The
emotional family of fear includes feelings of worry, anxi-
ety, panic, terror, or horror (Bericat 2016). People are
likely to feel fear or anxiety if they perceive that their
future interests are threatened or that they may suffer harm
(Barbalet 1998). Thus, fear is caused by vulnerability and
a lack of power in a situation (Barbalet 1998; Bericat
2016). Similarly, people may experience feelings from
annoyance, indignation, to rage or fury, all within the
emotional family of anger, when they lose power or status
and there is a perceived or real injustice, insult, betrayal,
obstacles to achievement, or incompetence (Bericat 2016;
Jasper 2014). The ‘subordination hypothesis’ suggests that
people of a subordinate status – determined by a lower
prestige and respect assigned to a social position – inhibit
negative and threatening feelings of anger and disgust and
instead display sadness and fear because these emotions
are less likely to challenge the social order (Conway,
DiFazio, and Mayman 1999; Kemper 2006; Shields et al.
2006). Therefore, people may purposefully express anger
when they seek a restoration of justice (Turner and Stets
2006) or when they believe that others have intentionally
and unjustifiably violated their rights or undermined their
well-being. Perhaps, because of its potential to threaten the
social order, anger is commonly displayed in social move-
ments. Anger also serves to bond together groups with
shared grievances and a shared goal of justice (Adams
2003; Jasper 2011, 2014; Shields et al. 2006).
Grief is an important factor in social movement pro-
cesses as it has the power to motivate people to join an
existing movement or to form a new one. The desire to
prevent loss and avoid grief is often a goal of social
movements (Charmaz and Milligan 2006; Jasper 2011;
Tully 1995). As with grief, emotional and physical pain

can feed one another, intensifying with fear, powerless-
ness, anxiety, depression, and lack of control (Bendelow
and Williams 1998; Francis 2006). People need meaning
to help interpret their pain and avoid feeling isolated,
stigmatized, and discredited (Bendelow and Williams
1998; Francis 2006). Particularly, when experiencing
pain, people fixate on misfortune in order to determine
responsibility and then correct problems to prevent future
misfortunes (Douglas 1992). Individuals seek responsibil-
ity based on their concept of an ideal organization, first
blaming those who are disliked or distrusted in order to
maintain the ideal (Douglas 1992).
Researchers have observed that people enact emotions
based on their role identities (Burke and Reitzes 1981;
Ellestad and Stets 1998). People understand stressful situa-
tions based on how they see themselves, enacting emo-
tions related to their role identity. In particular, individuals
respond emotionally to events or circumstances based on
their understanding of how their social identity, such as
being a woman or an American, is expected to respond
(Eagly and Karau 2002; Stets and Carter 2006; Tsushima
and Burke 1999). The gender role identity influences
emotional expression because men are encouraged to
express emotions that display power, and women are
encouraged to express emotions that display vulnerability.
Women express sadness and fear more often than men,
who primarily use emotion to express anger and pride
(Brody 1997; Fabes and Martin 1991; Fischer 1993;
Francis 2006; Shields et al. 2006). Men are taught to
suppress feelings of sadness and empathy in order to
appear logical and thereby earn ‘emotional capital’ that
justifies their authority (Francis 2006; Lupton 2013; Sattel
1976).
The gender role expectations for emotional expression
correspond to the emotion–logic dichotomy, a socially
constructed paradigm that values logic over emotion, for
which men are encouraged to be logical and women emo-
tional (Francis 2006; Lupton 2013; Sattel 1976). For
example, grief may be more frequently expressed publicly
by women than men, particularly as a means to achieve a
political goal (Charmaz and Milligan 2006). This is pre-
cisely because women are assumed to be naturally emo-
tional, particularly in instances where women emphasize a
mothering role as motivation for demanding political
action (Charmaz and Milligan 2006; Tully 1995). In the
instance of Love Canal, activists purposefully highlighted
their role as mothers and the environmental risk to chil-
dren, and were initially dismissed as emotional mothers
despite supportive environmental test results (Blum 2008;
Kitchell and Weiss 2013; Levine 1982). However, women
are often framed as emotional and apolitical in institutional
discourses as a means to dismiss their ideas. In response,
social movements must strategically account for these
gendered assumptions (Ferree and Merrill 2000).
Researchers have found that with breast cancer issues,
female activists gain public support with emotional pleas,
but are then discredited as emotional, biased women in the
political arena (Montini 1996; Zavestoski, McCormick,
Environmental Sociology 241
and Brown 2004). This means that women activists must
negotiate between gendered perceptions of logic and
emotion.
Literature points to a gendered difference of concern
in which women are more concerned about issues of
environment and contamination (Davidson and
Freudenburg 1996; Edelstein 2004; McStay and Dunlap
1983). Extant research shows that women activists get
involved due to a sense of violation by toxic intrusion
into the private sphere and desire to protect children and
families (Bell and Braun 2010; Blum 2008; Krauss 1993;
Kurtz 2007). Following traditional gender role expecta-
tions, the interest of men in environmental issues often
focuses on economic matters (Bell and Braun 2010;
Blum 2008; Hunter, Hatch, and Johnson 2004).
However, Perkins (2012) suggests that for women, one
pathway into activism is not directly related to a mother-
ing role, but instead to gendered understandings of moral
obligations to justice. ‘Moral emotions’ of shame, guilt,
sympathy, and empathy are often expressed by women
and motivate activism (Turner and Stets 2006).
Sense of community
Emotions are also an integral part of how people experi-
ence a sense of community. Feelings toward the broader
community and place-based emotional bonds, evident in
one’s sense of community and attachment to place, may
influence how individuals assess and therefore react to
threats to their environment (Crowe 2010; Long and
Perkins 2007). One’s sense of community is the percep-
tion of the area’s social quality (Long and Perkins 2007)
including feelings of interdependence maintained by
mutual support and the sense that one belongs to a
larger, stable structure (Edelstein 2004). McMillan and
Chavis’ (1986) conceptual framework for sense of com-
munity includes: membership (feeling of belonging or of
sharing a sense of personal relatedness), influence (a
sense of making a difference and consequence to one
another), integration and fulfillment of needs (the feel-
ing that member needs will be met through their joint
membership), and shared emotional connections (com-
mon history, places, time together, shared experiences).
In a time of contestation, the sense of community and
feelings associated with it may affect if residents unite
or divide.
Similarly, individual attachment to place of residence
can be observed in behavior or attitudes (Crowe 2010;
Kasarda and Janowitz 1974; Oh and Kim 2009).
Behaviors are reflected in neighborhood interactions
(friendship with neighbors and neighboring) and neighbor-
hood involvement (participation in neighborhood organi-
zations or activities). Attitudes indicating place attachment
are evident in the perception of social cohesion and trust
among residents (Oh and Kim 2009) as well as an indivi-
dual’s sense of belonging to and agency in the community
(Crowe 2010). Contested illness research notes that those
suffering illnesses are sometimes considered ‘insiders’
242 G. Jacobson
who are not well understood by ‘outsiders’, affecting
feelings of community belonging (Edelstein 2004;
Gunter and Kroll-Smith 2007). Therefore, it is important
to understand how sense of community, attachment to
place, and gender relate to emotions that emerge in com-
munity conflict.
Data and methods
Site selection
Residents of The Acreage, a South Florida community,
experienced uncertainty about environmental risks when
the Florida Department of Health (FLDOH) labeled their
community a pediatric cancer cluster and the Florida
Department of Environmental Protection (FLDEP) con-
ducted environmental testing for contamination (FLDEP
2014; Malek 2011). The case of The Acreage was selected
because various emotions were triggered by several factors
including: a sentiment of uncertainty, an abnormal number
of sick children, and the economic recession. These con-
ditions created an appropriate setting to explore the ques-
tion of social dynamics that generate emotion in contested
illness cases.
Historically, The Acreage was a sparsely populated,
swampy wilderness. It was home to agriculture, mining,
and aerospace industries for decades (Elmore 2010). Many
homes were built once building permits relaxed in 1990
(Elmore 2010). Today, The Acreage is a community of
approximately 39,000 residents (U.S. Census 2010), yet
remains unincorporated and governed by nearby Palm
Beach. The population is 78.9% white, 13.3% African
American, and 2.6% Asian. A total of about 91.8% of the
homes are owner-occupied housing units and 83.7% of the
households in The Acreage are family households (U.S.
Census 2010).
Residents of this rural area became suspicious that
their local industries could have contributed to environ-
mental illness in 2008, when a 5-year-old resident of The
Acreage named Garrett Dunsford was diagnosed with a
benign astrocytoma, a type of brain tumor (Malek 2011).
The tumor was successfully removed, and soon after
Garrett’s parents met another family with a pediatric
brain cancer patient who lived within 2 miles of their
house (Lerner 2014). Garrett’s parents began to suspect
that their son’s brain tumor might have resulted from
exposure to environmental contaminants. Soon after, The
Dunsfords learned of other cancer patients in close proxi-
mity and mapped these on an open website. This prompted
them to contact the FLDOH’s Bureau of Epidemiology in
May 2009 to demand an environmental investigation
(Malek 2011) and the local media to raise awareness
about their concerns (interview notes). Some residents
who disliked the media attention to these concerns voiced
these concerns through that same local media. That year,
many residents attended town hall meetings regarding the
investigation and issue of environmental contamination
(Lerner 2014).
In response to community concern, the FLDOH began
an investigation of the malignant brain cancers and central
nervous system (CNS) tumors reported in the community
between 1995 and 2007. On 1 February 2010, the FLDOH
confirmed that there was a higher than average number of
pediatric brain cancers and tumors in The Acreage
(FLDEP 2014; Malek 2011; Musgrave 2013; Swenson
2014). The community was officially labeled a cancer
cluster. The Dunsfords and other concerned families advo-
cated (this group is hereafter referred to as ‘advocates’) for
an investigation of probable environmental causes. FLDEP
tested local groundwater, drinking water, and soil for
possible contamination between August 2009 and April
2010 (FLDEP 2014; Malek 2011). The state spent nearly
$750,000 on testing during this time (Swan 2012). The
FLDEP reached the conclusion that there was no environ-
mental contamination that could be linked to the cancers
observed (FLDEP 2014). However, many residents
remained suspicious that the cancers were caused by envir-
onmental pollution.
Many residents suspected United Technologies
Corporation’s Pratt & Whitney Group and The Palm
Beach Aggregates of leaking carcinogenic contaminants
into the soil and well water on The Acreage properties.
Both companies have faced over a dozen lawsuits filed by
residents seeking compensation for environmentally
related damages, which have been dismissed, are still in
progress, or are in the appeals process (Lerner 2014;
Musgrave 2013; Swan 2012; Swenson 2014). The local
mining company, The Aggregates, was accused of know-
ingly contaminating the aquifer and canals in The Acreage
throughout its history (Lerner 2014; Musgrave 2013). Pratt
& Whitney, located approximately 12 miles north of The
Acreage, is contracted with the Department of Defense to
design and build aerospace propulsion systems and rocket
engines. The company has reported leaks of petroleum,
various metals, volatile organic compounds, and 1, 4-
dioxane in the past, all of which were found in the ground-
water on and near the company’s property (Musgrave
2013). Other suspected sources of pollution include, but
are not limited to: naturally occurring radon and radium,
radiation from power lines, pesticides from the nearby
orange groves, and dirt ‘fill’ that was used to level resi-
dential plots of land, the contents of which were unknown
and became increasingly questioned.
Data collection
In order to explore the role of emotions in cases of ambig-
uous environmental illness, 57 in-depth semi-structured
interviews with residents were conducted. Interviews
focused on their experience with the situation and assess-
ment of potential risks in the community. The interviews
were structured to give participants space to describe their
experiences, reflect on how they came to form their per-
spective on illnesses in their community, and explain their
opinions on the findings from the FLDOH and FLDEP
studies. Questions included ‘How did you come to know
 Environmental Sociology 243

about the cancer study?’ ‘What are your thoughts and
feelings on the possibility of environmental contaminants
contributing to the brain cancers?’ ‘Can you tell me about
the sense of community in The Acreage?’ All interviews
were digitally recorded and transcribed for data manage-
ment, coding, and analysis.
Various sampling strategies were employed to recruit
research participants. Research assistants helped to
recruit participants by calling publicly listed numbers.
Recruitment flyers were posted in local supermarkets
and newspapers, and participants were recruited through
websites and open Facebook groups of residents. The
sample was then expanded using a snowball technique
that involved asking participants to refer other residents
who would be willing to participate (Patton 2002).
Participants with diverse perspectives on the cancer
cluster study and environmental investigation were
included in the study in order to develop a well-rounded
understanding of how emotions were felt and perceived
regarding potential environmental threats. While partici-
pants who had moved out were not purposely recruited,
14 participants in the sample had moved out of The
Acreage by the time of our interview, and are identified
by their current or former resident status in the data
analysis. Reflective of The Acreage population, all inter-
viewees were homeowners when living in The Acreage,
with little variation in household income among the
sample, and nearly all participants identified as white.
Averaging 55 minutes in length, interviews were
uncompensated and conducted from May to November
2013. Selected characteristics of respondents included in
this paper are listed in Table 1.
Data analysis
Data analysis began during the interviews, using iterative
memos to help highlight themes that arose. The interview
themes along with sensitizing concepts from the existing
literature served as points of departure that guided a
deductive coding of the interview data, looking specifi-
cally for references to personal emotions and the emo-
tional expressions of others. The coding involved open,
line-by-line coding until the point of saturation (Bernard
2000; Saldaña 2013; Strauss 1987). Primary codes were
the first codes identified through the open coding process,
and the themes that emerged from the primary codes were
then used to identify axial codes (Strauss 1987). The axial
codes were the codes around which others revolved
(Saldaña 2013). Comparing commonalities and differences
among axial codes revealed how emotions factored into
risk assessments. Some thematic codes include: blame
practices, logic asserted as remedy, expressing both logic
and emotion, gender with logic, gender with emotion,
emotion and health, fear, and behavior modification.
Analysis and findings
The findings section begins with an analysis of the sense
of community in The Acreage in order to situate the
context of the case study and to introduce the two basic
‘feeling rules’ present in The Acreage. The next three
subsections follow the order of presentation in the litera-
ture review. ‘Uncertainty’ focuses on an issue that often
occurs at the onset of contested illness cases. I explain
how uncertainty surrounding the cancer cluster and envir-
onmental investigation triggered vulnerability and feelings

Table 1. Quoted respondents and selected characteristics.

Perspective on the study Years living in

Participant identifier and investigation The Acreage Sex Age Children age/sex of each

Current 65 Cancers are coincidence 36 M 62 40/M, 32/W, 37/M

Current 81 Advocate 19 F 50 21/F, 25/F
Current 5312 Suspects environmental link 8 F 43 13/M, 13/M
Current 731 Cancers are coincidence 33 F 53 30/F, 24/F
Current 661 Advocate 18 F 52 25/F, 23/M, 22/F, 16/F, 12/M
Current 724 Cancers are coincidence 6 M 50 0
Former 522 Suspects environmental link 6 F 44 5/F
Former 715 Suspects environmental link 4 F 36 6/M, 8/F
Current 528 Cancers are coincidence 10 F 23 0
Current 5232 Cancers are coincidence 21 M 47 0
Former 1116 Advocate 8 F 41 16/F, 13/M, 11/M
Current 97 Suspects environmental link 9 F 41 0
Former 626 Suspects environmental link 13 M 60 0
Former 73 Suspects environmental link 18 F 51 23/F, 20/F, 17/F
Former 617 Suspects environmental link 6 F 37 5/M
Former 67 Suspects environmental link 10 F 52 32/M
Former 7112 Cancers are coincidence 8 M 64 32/M, 23/F
Current 521 Suspects environmental link 17 M 62 36/M, 40/F, 43/M
Current 621 Cancers are coincidence 10 F 41 17/M, 15/F, 11/F, 8/F
Current 72 Advocate 15 F 62 33/F, 30/F
Current 6111 Suspects environmental link 10 F 36 7/M, 5/M
Current 791 Cancers are coincidence 10 F 39 17/F, 8/M, 4/M
244 G. Jacobson
in the family of fear. As a contrast to the subsection,
‘Uncertainty’ I then discuss the emotions related to the
decrease in property values, a definite problem, in the
section ‘Financial Factors’. Following that, I discuss the
complex relationship between gender role expectations,
emotion, and logic in this case. I then reflect on the
community-level impacts by first highlighting how
assumptions about emotions and ‘feeling rules’ creates
community tension in this contested illness case before
then briefly concluding with an analysis of how all of
these components affect the sense of community or attach-
ment to place. Thus, the sense of community begins and
ends the findings section to demonstrate what a commu-
nity may look like ‘before’ and ‘after’ a contested illness
battle.
Sense of community in The Acreage
Data indicate that different fundamental beliefs and
attitudes about the sense of community and attachment
to place influenced how neighbors interacted even
before the cancer cluster study. All the participants
enjoyed their home, land, and wildlife in The
Acreage. In terms of the sense of community, partici-
pants expressed membership, influence, integration, and
fulfillment of needs – mainly through examples of
neighbors helping each other in times of distress such
as flooding or car troubles. However, participants had
less agreement on shared emotional connections, com-
mon history, places, time together, and shared experi-
ences (McMillan and Chavis 1986), partly due to the
different ways residents interacted in the community.
Participants expressed two cultural perspectives on
community; they either wanted an involved community
that welcomed robust neighboring to foster social cohe-
sion and trust (Crowe 2010; Oh and Kim 2009; Long &
Perkins 2007) or separation and independence from
their neighbors. As discussed below, these two perspec-
tives about the sense of community generated different
ideas about the best interest of the community, such as
raising awareness about cancer cluster concerns or
keeping to oneself. The different ‘feeling rules’ linked
to these perspectives were evident in discussions of
their neighbors’ expression of fear, anger, and grief in
response to the cancer cluster case.
Reserved residents and corresponding ‘feeling rules’
The clash between these two cultural views emerged in
participant responses concerning the sense of community.
One man who had lived in The Acreage for 36 years
explained that neighbors were historically not very
involved in each other’s lives. ‘I don’t interact with my
neighbors a lot. I can socialize alright but I would rather
that they just left me alone and I’d leave them alone.
That’s the way it was out here’, (Current resident 65).
Those sharing this type of attachment to place and sense
of community were more reserved in their community and
content with minimal interaction. Another man explained:
We call people like that neighborhood commandos. They
go around sticking their nose in everybody else’s business.
I had one guy who told me I needed to cut my yard. I told
him if it bothers him so much he could bring his law-
nmower and cut it for me <chuckles>! I don’t bother the
neighbors and they don’t bother me, (Current resi-
dent 521).
Some of these participants originally moved to The
Acreage to escape city life and live in a natural landscape,
separate from a social community and devoid of a home-
owners association. Other participants with this approach
to community described The Acreage as a place to sleep
while social, occupational, and other activities occurred in
nearby cities.
In response to information about the cancer cluster,
residents who were independent from their neighbors
addressed their concerns about contamination privately.
These residents did not want to be disturbed by neighbors,
so accordingly, they did not express or address environ-
mental health concerns publicly as to avoid disturbing
their neighbors. They modified daily behaviors such as
drinking only bottled water, taking short showers, or not
allowing children to play outside barefoot. Some with the
financial resources independently tested their soil and
water for contaminants to relieve anxieties. Others
responded to their fears by moving to an area that was
not on well water but instead on city water that is treated
and monitored for contaminants. Those who spoke with
me about moving out felt comfortable about their decision
and reported that, despite a great financial loss, they felt ‘a
sense of relief’ or enjoyed ‘peace of mind’ living outside
of The Acreage. For example, a former resident of The
Acreage reported that she and her husband ‘lost a lot of
money’ by moving but felt good about the decision pri-
marily for the safety of their young daughter:
At the end of the day we’re all healthy. And you know that
gives you peace of mind. We’re healthy. And I don’t have
to sit in that house and wonder, ‘What am I breathing?’
‘What am I walking on?’ The water that’s pouring over
my head in the shower in the morning, or that I’m putting
in my child’s bathtub, is not potentially harmful, (Former
resident 522).
These independent responses to the investigation align
with the sense of community in which neighbors keep to
themselves and protect community reputation by
approaching concerns privately.
Involved residents and corresponding ‘feeling rules’
Other residents were involved in the community, advo-
cated for a new community center, and helped establish
parks and recreational areas. When I asked about the sense
of community in The Acreage, one female advocate
explained, ‘Well I mean I really love my community. My

kids grew up there, played sports there, I taught at the high
school, volunteered, I love the community. And I don’t
want that community to collapse and be affected by some-
thing terrible’, (Current resident 81). Residents with this
kind of place attachment described similar behaviors of
neighborhood involvement and interactions as well as
participation in community events such as fundraisers or
the annual chili cook-off. One woman explained:
We have a really good community structure out there and
they do events three or four times a year where the whole
community comes to the community park and they do the
picnics and fundraisers. They do have a lot of events out
there so I do feel a good sense of community, (Current
resident 621).
Participating in community activities fosters an attachment
to place and contributes to one’s sense of community in
their feelings of membership, influence, integration, and
shared emotional connections (Crowe 2010; McMillan and
Chavis 1986). The advocates followed ‘feeling rules’ in
accordance with their concerns for the health of their
families and neighbors. One of the mother advocates
explained the support group that was formed by the advo-
cate families affected by cancer:
You had all of these families sitting in a room. Once a
month we would get together and every month there was
another family. We were doing many things at one time;
we were meeting together and discussing things. We had
this web link and the media, (Current resident 516).
In their view, advocates connected to the media to draw
attention to their concerns and the popular epidemiology
efforts to collect, map, and disseminate data regarding
cancers in their neighborhood. These actions were intended
to unearth the cause of illnesses in order to prevent any
more of them. She continued, ‘In the long run you are
helping people and you are changing ways of doing things,
whether you think you are or not’, (Current 516). Another
female advocate directly related her perspective on the
cancer cluster to a sense of moral obligation:
If you have knowledge, you’re supposed to share that knowl-
edge, and if there’s something wrong, if you do nothing, it’s a
sin of omission. I don’t know how you feel about that but you
are obligated to community. I’m old school, and I’m an older
person. So being the child of my era, there was a strong sense
of community that was instilled in most of my generation and
if there was something wrong you were supposed to help fix
it, (Current resident 72).
Advocates described how they supported each other and
efforts to prevent future cancers by trying to ensure the
health of the environment, while they felt dissent from
neighbors who opposed the study.
I saw Jennifer as someone who I really admired . . . <begins
to tear up> and how she bravely went forward. It was my
way of making up for my child being sick. I didn’t want
any other child to be sick for that long. I wanted doctors to
Environmental Sociology 245
be more aware, especially out here, of these symptoms that
were happening, (Current resident 516).
One advocate whose child survived a brain tumor
explained that the cancer cluster study was intended to
protect the health of anyone living in the community.
The people who were opposed to it were just obnoxious,
really obnoxious. They had very little sympathy for chil-
dren, and very little sympathy for adults who were ill and
everything like that. For me, you just aren’t really human
if you can’t take the time to see the necessity of studying
the area that you live in, even though you aren’t affected.
(Former resident 1116).
Those sharing this desire to ensure community health used
a collective effort and believed that publicly expressing
concern was in accordance with appropriate ‘feeling
rules’. This was in contrast to those who were reserved
and wanted little interaction with neighbors, adhering to
less-expressive feeling rules.
Uncertainty
The cancer cluster raised several unanswered questions
about the health of the environment and personal safety
of those living in The Acreage, mainly due to concerns
with household water quality. Participants commonly
expressed that people in the community were fearful
upon initially learning about the cancer study and investi-
gation. One woman who lived in The Acreage with her
husband and two teenage boys shared her observations of
the initial community response.
Fear was one [emotion], certainly. Fear of losing a family
member, obviously, fear of loss of property, not knowing.
A lot of people were frightened. Is it in your best interest
to move your family from the community? Are the studies
real? Is the data real? (Current resident 5312)
Citizens were scared about the possibility of environmen-
tal contamination and they expressed feelings from the
emotional family of fear such as worry, panic, and anxiety,
when talking to others and meeting with government
officials at well-attended town hall meetings. The town
hall meeting with the Palm Beach County Health
Department was particularly memorable for some.
The health department meeting was the one that actually
kind of scared me the most. And that was when [the
Florida Department of Health] declared us a cluster. The
community was in a panic. You know there were people
screaming about us being contaminated and that it was all
our water . . . So you had to be here to see how upset
people were. There were hoots and hollers and screaming
from the audience. You know some woman, gave the Palm
Beach department a warning with her umbrella, waving it
in the air! (Current resident 731)
This participant indicated that she was not alone in her
fears, and that the combination of information about the
246 G. Jacobson
cancer cluster and emotional expressions of other atten-
dees even contributed to her fears. Feelings of fear indi-
cated the vulnerability residents felt in response to possible
environmental threats (Barbalet 1998; Bericat 2016).
Financial factors
While residents experienced uncertainty regarding envir-
onmental hazards, one thing stood out as very certain: a
decrease in property values. Participants shared how
stigma of a cancer cluster manifested in a freeze on mort-
gage loans and required that people trying to sell their
homes offer a disclosure statement to potential buyers.
Some residents were angry because they did not see evi-
dence to support an environmental link to the cancers but
they witnessed damage to their property values because of
the investigation and lending freeze. Therefore, they
experienced feelings in the emotional family of anger
from annoyance, indignation, to rage or fury due to a
loss of power or status, and they perceived injustice,
insult, or betrayal (Bericat 2016; Jasper 2014) coming
from their neighbors advocating for an investigation.
Then the housing market crashed and all of these people
who built these gorgeous houses out there lost their
houses. It was a perfect storm of this cancer cluster com-
ing and it caused home values to plummet even further.
There were a lot of people who were really angry about
that – - The housing market at one point, banks wouldn’t
lend to anyone in the Acreage, (Current resident 528).
One man made a joke about insulting reactions he experi-
enced from people who associated The Acreage with the
cancer cluster.
We’re a stigma. When we tell people where we live they go,
‘Ohhh.’ They expect us to be glowing or something! There
is a huge stigma hanging over us. [Negative attention] came
in and did the damage and it’s going to take a long time
before it goes back to normal (Current resident 724).
Participants noticed that the economic recession exacer-
bated community animosity and stirred emotional reac-
tions from those focused on property values. One woman
commented:
I saw a lot of hatred and anxiety start to arise. I think that
the economy hit at the same time and people were losing
jobs. Housing values were going down but I almost feel
like what happened with the community divide was
because that was transpiring and not just the cancer
issue, (Former resident 73).
The cancer cluster investigation added an extra layer of
stress upon already distressed individuals suffering from
poor economic conditions. One resident commented that he
noticed a connection between property values and residents’
reaction to the investigation. ‘[Residents had] an emotional
reaction watching their houses, their values drop. And this
just caused it to accelerate. And people were lashing out at
people wanting to blame somebody else for something’,
(Current resident 5232). Some residents were angry because
they felt that their property values unjustifiably decreased.
Many participants opposed to the investigation blamed
the advocates for the negative reputation and lending
freeze, which affected property values. One woman specu-
lated, ‘Of course the first thing they did was file a lawsuit.
So then you wonder whether that’s the motivation. You
know, was there a financial motivation?’ (Current 731). In
blaming the advocates, residents highlighted who was
distrusted and reinforced their concept of an ideal commu-
nity (Douglas 1992). Feeling betrayed by their neighbors,
some participants who felt that the cancer cluster was an
obstacle to their financial achievements asserted that advo-
cates may not be concerned for the community’s health but
rather motivated by profiting from their illness experience.
Participants also experienced pain and grief related to
the loss of their financial security as property values
dropped, or the actual loss of financial capital if they
moved out. One woman in her late 30s lost her husband
to a brain tumor and moved herself and young son out of
The Acreage. She commented:
You’re talking about a risk that could kill your children. I
don’t think that a property with four walls and a roof is
worth that. And unfortunately, I did have to pay that price
because our dream house killed my husband. My house
went into foreclosure. We paid $564,000 for that house
and the house went to auction for 90. That’s not even
accrued interest! (Former resident 617).
This participant experienced several forms of grief related
to an inversion of home, the loss of her husband/father of
her child, loss of financial security, and dislocation due to
what she believed to be environmental contamination.
Another participant who moved out grieved the loss of
her home. She found a tumor growing on her arm at the
same time that her neighboring sister-in-law had a brain
tumor removed. The love of her home was not enough to
keep her living near her family in The Acreage:
I was so proud of my house, I loved my house. I put so
much time and money and–it was my house! I wasn’t just
going to leave. I had it built from scratch. I was very
happy there. But when all this media stuff started coming
out about the cancer cluster, and I had evidence–not evi-
dence but because of what happened to me and my sister-
in-law and you know, what a coincidence! And I was just
like, I can’t stay here, (Former resident 67).
Similar to others who had moved out, this participant
experienced an inversion of home (Edelstein 2004;
Goodman, Vaughn, and Gill 1992) and wished that she
could move her land and home to another location that
was not questioned for health hazards.
Gender, emotion, and logic
The gender of people raising cancer cluster concerns led
some neighbors to perceive the concerns as emotional,

illogical claims. As in other contested illness or environ-
mental justice cases (Bell and Braun 2010; Blum 2008;
Levine 1982; Edelstein 2004), women were at the forefront
of investigation advocacy and the local media first inter-
viewed mothers of children with cancer. Whether these
advocates intentionally presented themselves as mothers or
not, some residents fixated on this identity when considering
their environmental risk claims. One man stated:
Well, [government officials] were reacting to um, a bunch
of, for lack of a better way to describe them, a bunch of
frenzied mothers, who obviously were citizens. It was con-
centrated concern and the government took action to try to
find out if they had a valid reason to be concerned. I do not
react to emotions. I mean, yes, everyone does periodically,
but that’s a mistake in, almost always in hindsight when you
react emotionally, it was a mistake, (Current resident 5232).
Comments such as these indicate that residents conflated
emotion (‘frenzied’) and gender (‘mothers’) together.
Participants noted that it was not only the advocates but also
other women in the community who were concerned, as
observed at the town hall meetings and in conversations with
friends. One man who moved out of The Acreage shared, ‘I
heard people at the town hall meeting, a lot of women were
very concerned ‘cause they had young children’, (Former
resident 7112). Another participant who advocated for the
investigation thought that more mothers in the community
reacted to the situation because mothers were the first to
raise awareness in the media. She was a member of a support
group formed by the advocate families affected by cancer. She
referred to the gender of the people interviewed from her
group.
Mothers were the first to react. I think the first to react were
moms because they were like, ‘I just saw this on TV!’ A lot
of them were scared. Then one of our men started being
interviewed because his daughter had brain cancer. When he
started doing interviews – what we tried to do and I don’t
even know if we realized it but we really tried to–there were
a few media interviews where we did it with all of us
together as couples. That way we could present more of a
united front instead of it just being a mother thing. It’s a
family thing, it’s a community thing, (Former resident 1116).
Those at the center of the investigation wanted to reinforce
that contamination could affect anybody, and everyone
should be concerned, regardless of gender. Participants also
discussed how men and women responded differently to the
possible environmental link. Women sympathized with men,
noting that the possibility of an environmental risk was
particularly difficult for them, even though it was arguably
a difficult situation for everyone involved. When discussing
the support group, one of the members shared her thought on
the difference between the men and women involved.
There were just as many men as women involved in it. I
just think that of the ones personally affected by it, it was
harder on men, because they just wanna fix it. They’re not
good with uncertainty, stuff hanging in the air, especially
when it’s their kids, (Current resident 81).
Environmental Sociology 247
Some women who spoke with me compared their reac-
tions with that of their husbands, illustrating that they
connected emotional expression to gender role identity.
One former resident who supported the investigation
explained her husband’s response.
He doesn’t deal with anything dramatic easily. Like he was
almost in denial at first and that’s how he is with anything.
But I think with him having to accept something that he
doesn’t want to accept, it’s very difficult for him. So looking
at the whole water situation, he is the kind of person that
doesn’t accept those things, (Former resident 715).
Some women found helpful guidance from their husbands,
explaining to me that they were emotional but that their
husbands helped them be more rational.
It was emotional. It was crazy. A lot of people were hyster-
ical. I would talk to my husband and my husband would
calm me down. I would talk to other mothers and come back
to my husband and say, ‘Well they say this.’ He would say,
‘They have no fact. You can’t just move up your life without
fact. You’ve got to be level headed here. You’re changing
your life and your kids’ life and the dream that you had.‘ I
would say, ’I get that. I don’t care what it was if it means my
kids‘ health.’ We waited for the [soil and water test] results.
And he was right. For about a year we were going back and
forth, should we move, should we just go rent somewhere
and leave the house? But our common sense, and being
parents, and being adults, said, ‘No we have to have
proof’, (Current resident 6111).
He would calm me. We would go to meetings and he just
weighs the information. We all know, and he knows that
there is a problem. I think he’s got this problem-solving
mentality that he has to first know what the problem is,
and he doesn’t run from it. The last two years have been
very hard on us, (Current resident 516).
One participant attributed her reaction to her pregnant
status, comparing herself with her husband. Her husband
believed that contamination came from the dirt used to
level the ground upon which The Acreage houses were
built, commonly referred to as ‘fill’.
I asked my husband should we pay someone to test our
water and our soil and he would say, ‘Honey, like seriously I
already told you that I know where our soil is coming from
and that there are some people who have no idea where their
soil came from.’ I have complete trust in him. I think in the
very beginning we were worried and we were ready to move
out of our dream house if we had to because we didn’t want
our kids to be in that kind of environment that can affect our
children and our health. But as time went by we calmed
down about it and he definitely calmed me down, you know,
because I was pregnant there were extra hormones and
emotions, (Current resident 791).
These comments suggest that participants perceive emo-
tion and logic as unrelated and that women are emotional
while men are logical. Participants followed ‘feeling rules’
associated with gender role expectations. These women
demonstrate the subordinate hypothesis as they expressed
less threatening emotions and more common emotional
248 G. Jacobson
displays of women: fear, sadness, and moral emotions
such as sympathy. Some dismissed environmental con-
cerns due to assumptions that mothers were reacting emo-
tionally and perceptions that neighbors did not think
logically about the illnesses.
Despite gendered assumptions and implications that
advocates of the cancer cluster study reacted emotionally,
data indicate that residents evaluated their environmental
risks through a cognitive process that included both emo-
tion and logic. Interviewees described how knowledge
about The Acreage intertwined with their own feelings of
injustice or anger. Participants who believed there was an
environmental contribution to the illnesses pointed to Pratt
& Whitney. Some participants referred to leaks of hazar-
dous materials that Pratt & Whitney reported to have
cleaned up as recently as 2003 (Musgrave 2013). One
woman who moved her family out of The Acreage
described the whole situation as ‘unfair’. She explained:
I really believe that this all goes back to Seminole Pratt &
Whitney. I do! I do believe they had a big hand in this and
we’re civilians; we don’t have a chance. You’re not going
after a business. You’re not going after an organization,
you’re going after the government. I can’t be that ignorant
to it, you know? . . . I remember like off of Seminole Pratt
[Road], it was during one of the hurricanes before we
bought our property, there were barrels. There were lea-
ched barrels from Seminole Pratt Whitney up, exposed
because all of the water. The containers were leached,
(Former resident 715).
For some residents, the relationship between Pratt &
Whitney and the government, the formal reports about
contamination leaks, and sometimes their own observa-
tions led them to believe that there was governmental
failure to ensure a healthy environment (Freudenburg
1993; Edelstein 2004). For others, it was the corporate
reaction to the litigation that lacked sound reasoning.
‘And another thing that bothers me is the fact that, if
these two companies don’t have anything to hide, why
don’t they let those attorneys test their property?’
(Current resident 97). Those who expressed distrust for
corporate or governmental operations were angry because
they believed that these powerful organizations that had
unjustly threatened the health of the community.
Residents who believed in an environmental link also
described how various pieces of information about the
cancers or illnesses, The Acreage’s environment and his-
tory, or personal experience led them to logically conclude
that an environmental link to the cancers was probable.
One man shared his observations of people testing radon
with a Geiger counter:
The soil is radioactive. It’s naturally occurring radon. They
had to recalibrate and some properties were off the charts,
they had four times the [acceptable exposure] amount!
Mine showed nothing, (Former resident 626).
Although his property did not test positive for radon, he
saw that his neighbors were not as lucky, and he explained
the link between radon and brain cancer. Another partici-
pant who lost her husband to cancer thought that her
personal knowledge of illnesses was too much to be coin-
cidental. ‘I’ve probably had five people that I know of
here who are my age [51] pass away from some kind of
cancer. I thought that was high in numbers personally. We
had probably three animals that died of tumors’. When
referring to her late husband’s doctor, she said, ‘The
oncologist did say that the type of leukemia that he had
was directly from overexposure to different things. I guess
two chromosomes that indicated leukemia were a direct
link to environmental media, so I started connecting the
dots’, (Former resident 73). She explained that her interest
in the investigation was based on information about the
situation rather than her emotional reaction to the death of
her friends or husband. Many interviewees referred to
social media or the map of cancers recorded on the website
maintained by the advocates. For some, the map indicated
that their neighbors’ cancers were too close to be
coincidental.
So then when you open [the website map], and you see
that on my street I had like 5 people that died of cancer on
my street. That kinda worries you a bit when your neigh-
bors are dropping like flies. And only one of ‘em was
brain, the rest of ’em were all something else. And of
course mine was throat cancer and I’ve never smoked a
cigarette in my life. Not a heavy drinker. Had no reason to
get throat cancer and the doctors don’t know why I got it,
(Former resident 7112).
These interviewees described that they believed that the
illnesses were environmentally induced based on logical
conclusions rather than emotional reactions. These data
demonstrate that information about the cancers and poten-
tial contaminants triggered feelings in the emotional
family of anger, revealing the complex relationship
between logic and emotion.
Assumptions about emotions
Many participants unconcerned about environmental con-
tamination stressed their belief that emotions were fueling
resident desires to push for the cancer study and investiga-
tion. The emotions experienced by neighbors suffering
illnesses was a defining factor in creating what researchers
call an ‘insider’ status, whereas others were ‘outsiders’ to
this emotional experience (Edelstein 2004; Gunter and
Kroll-Smith 2007). ‘Outsider’ participants were angry
that (in their view) the emotions of a few ‘insiders’
could be driving the cancer cluster study since they felt
that it undermined the reputation of the community or their
property values. For example, it seemed logical that par-
ents were upset about their children developing cancer, so
neighbors conjectured on how such feelings could influ-
ence their claims about environmental health threats. One
participant who thought the cancers were a coincidence
shared her observation of the advocates of the cancer
cluster investigation:

I think [the advocates] were looking for an explanation for
why this had happened to their family. I think they were
really hurting, felt like something was going on, and they
convinced a lot of people to get angry with them (Current
resident 528).
Residents with this perspective reasoned that parents push-
ing for environmental testing were motivated by their
personal, emotional experience to blame someone for
their child’s illness. One male respondent shared:
They wanna find a reason why something happened. All
right, well find a reason or not, your child has cancer,
okay? So rush to judgment is not gonna change what
you’re dealing with. So take a steady pace, I understand
you’re emotional and all that stuff, but ya know, like I said
I’ve been here for so long I’m not gonna worry, (Current
5232).
Thus, residents unconcerned about the cancer cluster
simultaneously understood that contamination concerns
may stir emotions among parents and other residents,
while stating that expression of these emotions should be
contained. Some people who thought the cancers were
coincidental assumed that supporters of the cancer cluster
study and investigation were fueled by their emotional
experience as opposed to logical conclusions. In accor-
dance with reserved residents, people with this perspective
thought that advocates should have concealed their con-
cerns from the public until there was indisputable evidence
of an environmental link to the cancers. One participant
voiced this concern: ‘You keep your thoughts to yourself
and don’t bring down our property value, don’t start com-
ing through if you don’t have anything to prove because
you are really affecting us’ (Former resident 715). To these
participants, abiding by these ‘feeling rules’ could have
protected the community from stigmatization and a
decrease in property values.
Disrupted sense of community or attachment to place
Residents experienced tension between neighbors based
on their perspective on the cancer cluster and suspected
environmental contamination, and as demonstrated
above, factors such as ‘feeling rules’, perceptions of
others’ emotions, and assumptions of gender, emotion,
and logic. Participants expressed that these tensions
resulted in a disruption, rather than outright loss, of a
sense of community or attachment to place. Participants
said that they remained friends with neighbors who
opposed their perspective, but that this disagreement
tarnished existing social cohesion and trust. One advo-
cate whose daughter survived a brain tumor stated, ‘My
close friends were very, very supportive. I have a few
acquaintances that I would call friends that wouldn’t tell
me to my face, but of course their mission was to try
and determine that there was nothing going on’, (Current
resident 81). Other participants expressed similar
sentiments:
Environmental Sociology 249
I don’t believe there was an [environmental] issue out
there personally but there is the issue of: Am I going to
tell someone who has been living out there with her kids
all her life that I think that all of this is insane, when she is
considering moving and getting the kids out of there?
What do you do? I think there was a strain even in
personal relationships because whether you believed in
[environmental contamination] or not, it was just such a
sensitive topic, (Current resident 528).
It was, a very touchy subject to talk to people about it. If
you had friends that lived out there you could talk to them
whether they were thinking there was a problem or not. I
mean I know people who got death threats because it was
like, ‘Shut your mouth. Stop talking about this. You’re
ruining our property. You’re ruining our property value.
This needs to end. You need to stop bringing this up!’
People were really heated about it, (Former resident 522).
While people may have remained friends, these comments
demonstrate how contestation over environmental risks
undermined existing relationships. The behavior of intimi-
dating neighbors fractured membership, shared emotional
connections, neighborhood interactions and involvement,
and social cohesion and trust – all components of one’s
sense of community and attachment of place.
Discussion
Previous research on contested environmental illness
recognizes that residents express emotions but does not
examine the significance of these emotions in relation to
sense of community, gender, and assumptions regarding an
emotion–logic dichotomy. The direct analysis of these
social factors along with the types of emotions, what
causes these emotions, and the perceptions of these emo-
tions by others reveal social dynamics that lead to con-
testation. In this way, emotions are visible signs of the
more complex social differences underneath the surface.
The integration of the sociology of emotions into con-
tested illness research offers a richer understanding of
how the social experience of emotions and application of
‘feeling rules’ contribute to community dissension.
Place-based emotional bonds are related to one’s sense
of community and attachment to place which are integral
to questions of environmental risks in the community.
When residents have diverging conceptualizations of a
sense of community or attachment to place, the ‘feeling
rules’ in accordance with each conceptualization may
clash. This may lead to distinct ideas of how to protect
the community such as investigating environmental con-
tamination in order to prevent future illnesses. For exam-
ple, those who spoke out against environmental concerns
in this case attempted to suppress concerns and accompa-
nying expressions of fear and anger as these were inap-
propriate to express when trying to protect community
reputation and property value. Reserved residents who
kept to themselves agreed with the ‘feeling rules’ that
concerns should be handled privately and independently.
In contrast to reserved residents, involved residents took a
collective approach and were more likely to express
250 G. Jacobson
concern in order to ensure the health of the environment
and consequently the residents. Residents then experi-
enced indignation when others did not manage their emo-
tions according to their notion of ‘feeling rules’,
exacerbating tensions. Those who do not follow the ‘feel-
ing rules’, or expectations of emotion management, violate
a community ideal, and damage social cohesion.
Emotions may trigger a desire to place blame in order
to locate responsibility and prevent future misfortune and
loss. Various types of loss – such as the loss of a loved
one, one’s own health, or financial and psychological
securities in their home and property – enact a sense of
grief that may fuel a desire to prevent others from experi-
encing similar loss. Individuals may seek information due
to fear from not knowing about health threats. Anger due
to injustice, loss of power, or incompetence may similarly
encourage people to seek justice in finding a responsible
party. Depending on social factors such as the sense of
community, blame processes have the potential to divide
or unite the community. In the process of determining
blame, people may unify against a common adversary
(such as a polluting corporation or an incompetent govern-
ing body) or divide based on divergent experiences or
beliefs. Alternatively, people may perceive the emotions
of others as a signal of who to blame. For example, some
residents of The Acreage blamed the parents of sick chil-
dren for negative attention to their community because
they assumed these parents were motivated by their emo-
tional experience. These assumptions contradict findings
that emotions and cognition overlapped, and advocates
were not purely motivated by their emotions. This case
indicates that emotions that accompany environmental ill-
ness claims may be perceived as a signal that the claimants
lack rational thought and are therefore discredited.
In instances of contested environmental illness, per-
ceptions of environmental risks may be influenced by
assumptions of gender and emotion. The gender of people
raising concerns about environmental risks may influence
how people understand the claims, partially due to
assumptions of emotion and logic. The case of The
Acreage demonstrates that concerns voiced by women
may be dismissed as emotional reactions despite informa-
tion offering logical reason for concern. Concerns
expressed by mothers were interpreted as personal health
rather than public health issues, in line with assumptions
that women occupy the private as opposed to the public
sphere (Kurtz 2007). Residents unconcerned about an
environmental threat interpreted their neighbors’ fears as
worries about one’s individual health, and anger, grief, or
sadness as a reaction to loss or the violation of one’s
family health. It could be that in contested environmental
illness cases residents (or at the vertical dispute level,
government officials, experts, or corporate stakeholders)
dismiss concerns expressed by women or mothers due to
gendered assumptions and a false assumption that emotion
is independent of logic. Therefore, activists in contested
environmental illness issues need to consider gendered
assumptions as they strategize the communication of
their message to others, particularly when there is a fair
amount of uncertainty. Researchers can investigate what
happens in instances that carefully frame environmental
illness concerns with these gender assumptions in mind.
The assumptions about individual health rather than
public health also indicate that we still live in an era of
modernity rather than a risk society. In a risk society, we
would be more understanding of victims and aware that
societies take risks while individuals suffer consequences
(Beck 1992; Edelstein 2004). In a risk society, ‘outsiders’
would be more understanding to the consequences of risk
and therefore possibly more sympathetic to ‘insiders’,
despite the dissimilar emotions that these groups experi-
ence (Edelstein 2004). A move toward a more sustainable
society will begin to reduce the risk exposures that create
the conditions for contested environmental illness battles
altogether. Therefore, it would be important to understand
if people involved in contested environmental illness bat-
tles are compelled to live more sustainable, anti-toxic, or
activist lifestyles after the dispute is over, and if so, if
emotions such as fear, anger, grief, or moral obligations
contributed to this decision.
While this paper has examined a few key social fac-
tors, researchers may find that other social factors such as
race, class, and interactions with institutional actors can
also play a significant role in emotion management, ‘feel-
ing rules’, and the social experience of emotions during a
contested illness battle. Future research can elucidate how
these variables manifest at the vertical dispute level, parti-
cularly in the emotions of residents toward governing
bodies, expert institutions, corporations involved, or how
the emotion management of those within these structures
may affect conflict and community outcomes.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Ginger Jacobson is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Nazareth
College of Rochester where she also coordinates the
Environmental Studies Minor.
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