Communities facing environmental health threats can experience contention when residents have conflicting interpretations of risks; yet little is known about the socialpsychological processes that contribute to divergent risk perceptions in these cases. Drawing on previous work on environmental contamination, contested illness, and literature on risk perceptions, we offer a framework for analyzing how residents assess potential environmental risks. Using the case of The Acreage, Florida, we examine a community where a cancer cluster has been established, but an environmental cause has not been determined. Specifically, we ask how residents individually assess risks concerning possible environmental contamination in cases of contested illness. Data come from 57 in-depth interviews conducted with current and former residents of The Acreage. We argue that residents utilized particular cognitive heuristics to develop understandings and assessments of the situation. However, when these assessments contradicted those of other residents, community conflict emerged. We conclude by discussing how the framework utilized in our analysis can be applied in future research of contaminated communities.

This work contributes empirical research to racial formation theory (RFT) and systemic racism (SR), demonstrating how these theories complement each other. There are few practical applications of these theories. This research examines RFT and SR from the perspective of hip-hop fans. I qualitatively examine how 23 nonblack women articulate the relationships of race, class, and gender through discussion of hip-hop music and videos that accompany it. Findings suggest that hip-hop is a site of racial formation. Participants spoke from a color-blind perspective and white racial frame so that they perpetuated ideals of systemic racism theory.

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