Abstract
This was a crisis situation with no specificed reaction. There was no “grief” ritual. You don’t know what to do. There are divergent emotions and reactions needed to cope. People prefer that this didn’t happen. They can’t see water pollution; they don’t feel bad. They believe it, yet they can’t cope, so they rationalize it. Even I have a point where I said, “Enough, I can’t believe anymore.” When the [neighbor’s] child died, I reached my breaking point. I couldn’t believe that he died from the water because I couldn’t live here with the kids if I believed this. Other people shut off at the beginning. One person got an ulcer and the next didn’t believe that there was anything wrong.... We didn’t know what we were supposed to be doing! Are we paranoid, hypocritical crazies? —Comment of a community leader, Legier section of Jackson, New Jersey (quoted in Edelstein, 1982, p. 132)
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Edelstein, M.R., Wandersman, A. (1987). Community Dynamics in Coping with Toxic Contaminants. In: Altman, I., Wandersman, A. (eds) Neighborhood and Community Environments. Human Behavior and Environment, vol 9. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-1962-5_3
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