Book Review: Flammable-Environmental Suffering in an Argentine Shantytown

Flammable , an ethnography by Javier Auyero and Débora Alejandra Swistun, chronicles the daily struggles of residents of an Argentinian slum located next to a large Shell refinery. The area residents inhabit is technically deemed as “unsuitable for human life” by outsiders. A few families have been living there for over 50 years and others were newer to the neighborhood. Those who have lived there longer yearn for earlier times when they say the waters were cleaner, nearby farms grew fruits which smelled sweet and one could sleep with their door open.

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Most residents showed consistent symptoms of lead poisoning: skin rashes, convulsions, lethargy, anemia. Mothers worry for their children and their danger to become contaminated. However, due to misinformation spread by the media, nearby companies and among the residents themselves, there is much disagreement and confusion over the extent of the negative externalities of living in the village. Government officials and workers at Shell tend to use the “culture of poverty” argument, saying the residents have lead poisoning because of personal hygiene issues, the fact that many don’t wear shoes when they walk outside and that those living in the shantytown pay trucks to dump garbage into their backyards to stabilize the swampy grounds around them. This is contradicted by the claim that Shell considers the area to be so toxic that humans should not be inhabitting the space.

Journalists and lawyers frequently come into Flammable making promises that cannot be kept and giving residents false hopes of being able to get compensated and move to another place. This constant influx of authority figures and prospective saviors creates a state of uncertainty and waiting for the residents that increases their lack of agency and ability to organize together to improve their situations. Because the suffering and contamination became worse slowly and gradually over the years, most did not feel the urgency to leave, some even doubting that they have any contamination in their bodies even as noxious fumes are frequently blowing through the neighborhood, making it impossible to be outside.

Reading this book now for the second time in 2018 reminds me of parallels between the sustained confusion about contamination in Flammable with the confusion and disagreement in the American media which has divided citizens and distracted us from taking action on important issues in the face of uncertainty of the facts. One of the coauthors of Flammable, Débora Swistun, grew up in the shantytown. For many years she felt powerless against the contamination in her town and wondered if she should get out herself and leave others behind or find a way to create a collective solution to the problem and help relocate everyone. Through her research she has brought a lot of attention to the problems in her home village, a testament to the power of well done research, activism and strong will. Her book is a reminder that though it may take time, change is possible even in the most dire situations and in our very own backyards.

Why I studied Sociology in undergrad?

I first became interested in the study of Sociology at the age of 11, before I even understood what Sociology meant. During a summer in Boulder, Colorado, we frequented the locally famous Boulder Bookstore, where my mother and I would spend hours exploring the shelves, acquainting ourselves with new reads, and unbeknownst to the both of us, developing new interests entirely.

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I became engrossed with a collection of books which discussed modern-day issues, such as runaway capitalism, race relations in America, and food systems in America. Among my first “Sociological” reads were books like Don’t Eat This Book by film maker Morgan Spurlock, and Nickle and Dimed by journalist Barbara Ehrenreich. I was in love. The books I read about fast food made me rethink entirely the choices I made around food and awakened me to the reality that for some families, fast food is one of if not the only options to feed their families. I enjoyed reading books by authors who were active participants in exploring unjust social realities, who championed social reform through the spread of awareness of the problems they perceived around them. I wanted to follow. This is why I chose to study Sociology.

I am still glad I studied Sociology, but leading up to graduation, Sociology in the academic context had begun to feel like the wrong path for me. In undergrad I began feeling like I wasn’t writing papers and putting together projects out of passion, but rather obligation. The spark I originally had for social reform was not sustained.

Sensing that I needed to re-ignite this desire to learn more about the world and its people, I took a different approach, and took a year abroad in Germany and Denmark. I am so glad I did this. My German improved tremendously. I worked on a farm in the Black Forest and learned about sustainability in a class about Green Business practices. I talked to more strangers than I ever thought I’d speak to in the course of my entire life. Most importantly I soaked up the stories of the locals both from direct conversation and eavesdropping. I’m convinced those stories have shaped me and will continue to shape me.

While I prepare to make goals and plans for the next few years of my life, I hope to take the lessons I’ve learned both in my studies in Sociology and my experiences abroad and use them to enrich other people’s lives somehow. While the manner in which I will achieve this is still partially unclear, I hope at the very least to be a resource to people, and to be a listening ear to the stories of others.

❤ Color Me Adri