National environmental discourses and Villa Inflamable

In order to get a deeper understanding of the environmental research in Argentina, and thereby be able to locate the place of my study, I have read some literature on national environmental studies. I am interested in what an Argentinean environmental discourse in the research might look like. To make a simple example, will the case of Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (1962) show up as frequently as it does as a motivation for environmental studies in Sweden? Many researchers credit Carson for directing attention to the environment since she convincingly connected the everyday use of chemicals with environmental degradation in her book. Or is there some other case or book that does? My expectation is that the conflict surrounding the Botnia paper mill will be among the more frequently sited issues for raising environmental awareness in Argentina, but of course that is too early to say. The geographer Carlos Reboratti, whom I spoke to during the past week, directed my attention to the book Memoria Verde, or Green Memories, which the translation to English would have it, by Antonio Brailovsky and Dina Fougelman. Reboratti mentioned that it could possibly be the Argentinean equivalent to Silent Spring. I will have to get back on that later, since there were no copies left at the bookstores. The question about the influence of academics in the national discourse arises, as well as the interplay between public discourse and academic discourse. I get to think about how Anthony Giddens (1989) argues about the relationship through the hermeneutic circle between social sciences and society. Since many environmental problems are closely connected to scientific interpretations of nature, I believe this is central. But the issue also concerns the question of engagement in the research, which is mostly run under the heading of action research, or even participatory action research.

This last week I have read Inflamable – estudio del sufrimiento ambiental by Javier Auyero and Débora Swistun (2008). The book will probably come out in English soon. It is an excellent piece of work in its ethnographically rich description of the life in a “villa” located in the Buenos Aires area, as well as in its theoretical contribution to the understanding of collective action caused by environmental suffering – or rather its absence. Inflamable is the name of the neighbourhood in the district of Avellaneda, and it derived the name after the explosion and fire at the petroleum ship Perrito Moreno in 1984. The central issue that the study deals with is how the residents makes sense of the environmental suffering involved in the everyday life in the neighbourhood with the nauseating stench, the polluted water, toxic land and heaps of waste which are characteristic of the area. In distinction to several other studies within the field of environmental justice, this particular study rather treats the reconstruction of ignorance, and the absence of (successful) collective action.

The ethnography offers a good description of the interplay among various actors in the area – lawyers, doctors at the health centre, representatives for multinational companies like Shell, media reporters, investigators and teachers who all offers their interpretation of the suffering. An actor which could have had a role (or perhaps even should have had a role), is the State. But the state is absent in Inflamable, and the residents do not know to whom to make claims or demands. This concerns citizenship, and the relationship between individual and collective responsibility, and trust among actors, as I see it. I would argue that in order to understand collective action it is vital to get to grips with the relationship between citizens and the state, and how they trust or distrust each other. Many of the environmental justice movements concern marginalized groups of people, and an aspect of marginalization is to have no clear idea of towards whom to make claims and demands for services. Auyero and Swistun argue that there is a lack of intervention by the State in Inflamable, and even a general “public indifference” (2008: 36, 106, 137). It is important to return to the notion of Inflamable as an inhabitable place, but also to acknowledge the fact that the area has experienced immigration both from the Argentine countryside as well as from Bolivia and Peru.

In Argentina the inequalities between social groups have increased, showing deterioration distribution of funds with half of the population living below the poverty line (Auyero & Swistun 2008:47). Inflamable deals specifically with how the citizens of Inflamable make sense of environmental risk and problems and the connected social suffering. Just like Auyero and Swistun argue, it is hard to believe that poor people who have little education should be well informed about the concrete effects of toxic waste for example (Auyero & Swistun 2008:140). A central trait in the book is thus the focus on uncertainty, ambiguity and confusion. In Inflamable there is an “almost complete absence of collective action against the toxic threat” (Auyero & Swistun 2008:22, my interpretation). In the environmental justice movement literature it is possible to detect a period of learning, and what would be called a cognitive liberation or conscientization (ibid:25). Here it is useful to make a brief detour to a critical article by Phaedra Pezzullo (2001) who analyses how the attention given to an environmental movement influences the same group of people. In Warren County, in North Carolina, the community reacted against the construction of a toxic waste landfill. The movement in Warren County has been narrated countless times and has become a symbolic struggle in many ways. Even if there has been an abundance of descriptions of their success the movement itself believes that their struggle is incomplete, and they consequently attempt to continue to interrupt the hegemonic discourse. The case that Pezzullo draws attention to concerns what can be called a “mythification” of the environmental justice struggles and their success, and how the struggles seldom manages to change the structure that causes the problems to start with, like discrimination, racism and social inequalities. Here it is helpful to introduce the concept symmetry, which implies that we need to analyze both the success and the failure of social movements to accomplish their goals, something which Auyero and Swistun do. Just like Pezzullo cautions in relation to how to judge the success of an environmental movement, “[i]t is not enough to gain a place at environmental decision making tables” (ibid:3) Pezzullo uses the concept “critical interruption” to investigate the events in Warren County, and it concerns how citizen groups can “reframe the narratives that sustain oppressive environmental conditions” (Pezzullo 2001:1). The rhetorical device of connecting racism and environment caused a “critical interruption” by its juxtaposition that managed to draw attention to their case. In Inflamable it is not evident whether there have been any critical interruptions at all, and that is one of the arguments of the book.

Taking as a point of departure the interest in responsibility and accountability for environmental problems and their solution, the book raises a lot of important issues. For example, from a moral perspective it is possible to ask who is to blame for the poor health of the people in the neighbourhood of Inflamable? Is it possible that the multinational oil company Shell has any liability? Shell has been active in the area for decades, and previously it used lead in its production. Or are some of the number of other chemical companies and their activities? Or are the people themselves responsible since they have been bringing back toxic recyclable material like car batteries and filled up the land with toxic waste in order to be able to construct their dwellings, as representatives for the companies in the area argues? Whoever is to blame, many of the children and adults show symptoms of severe illness, like headache, rashes, tiredness, and when examined they show comparably high levels of lead in the blood. Simultaneously as many actors tend to blame the victim for causing themselves ill health, they often argue in a contradictory manner that the area is not fit for humans and that people shouldn’t be living here (2008:76).

The authors also give a methodological contribution by reflecting on their 2.5 years long ethnographic field work, including moral dilemmas and how to stand the polluted environment. The area of ambiguity and confusion are central here as well. “Very seldom we get to read ethnographic texts where the people hesitate, commit errors and contradict themselves”, they write (Auyero & Swistun 2008:30 my interpretation). Another of their methodological approaches in the study was to let school children take pictures with disposable cameras of the good and bad about the neighbourhood. This seems like a rewarding method to get an idea of the image that the residents have of their neighbourhood, and a way to grasp their view of risks and problems.

One of their wider objectives with the book concerns action research is a way, since they want to get the reader to start thinking about environmental suffering as an urgent issue for citizenship (Auyero & Swistun 2008:217). The relationship between environmental suffering and health is an rising public theme in current Argentine politics, even if the unequal distribution of risks and suffering among the most vulnerable systematically seems to be treated as something less pressing (Auyero & Swistun 2008:216).

In conclusion, and even if the result is somewhat discouraging from a democratic perspective, Inflamable is an important contribution to anyone interested in environmental risk and suffering, environmental justice and collective action, and perhaps it will be one of the silent springs of Argentina.