UC Davis

Composed of three articles, this dissertation examines the development of a transdisciplinary and community-engaged research partnership developed to address longstanding and undocumented concerns about agricultural health hazards among residents of an unincorporated farmworker community. Article I connects the literature on risk studies and environmental justice by using participant-led focus groups to examine residential perceptions of risk among white and Mexican-origin residents. It finds that residents of the case study community are acutely aware of contamination at the local level through their knowledge about the sources, fate and transport, and consequences of human exposure to environmental and occupational hazards. My findings substantiate claims that disadvantaged communities are often exposed to so much pollution that any sense of uncertainty about being exposed is all but extinguished, leading to a collective sense of toxic certainty. Implications of this research demonstrate the importance of participatory research and qualitative methods for uncovering rich community insights that could help guide the creation of risk communication policies founded in the knowledge, understanding, and potential barriers faced by target audiences. Article II further connects risk studies and environmental justice scholarship through the use of participant observation and focus groups to explain why and how environmental inequality, in this case living near agricultural hazards, is maintained in a farmworker community. It demonstrates the ubiquity and necessity of agricultural hazards, which leads residents to perceive a need for science information and government support to navigate the path toward environmental justice. Results highlight how contextual (place-based) and institutional resources serve to produce an ambiguous climate for community responses to environmental inequality, thus relegating risk management to the household and individual levels. Article III critically examines the development of our transdisciplinary and community-based partnerships. It recommends that, to best support communities, transdisciplinary environmental justice research should (a) reflect residents’ needs and concerns, (b) respect local ways of knowing and unknowing, and (c) produce notable outcomes for the community. This research addresses a significant gap in the environmental justice literature that has extensively interrogated agricultural hazards, which are predominantly experienced by Latinx farmworkers in the United States. Lessons learned from this research provide environmental justice scholars with a framework from which to engage with scholars of diverse backgrounds and disciplines to examine complex environmental problems alongside disadvantaged and vulnerable communities. In turn, this work adds to the transdisciplinary research scholarship through an innovative approach to environmental inequality at the community level. Using community-based and transdisciplinary approaches to operationalize the concepts of environmental justice advances the field, whereas the bulk of scholarship has focused on single-discipline approaches.