On the outskirts of Buenos Aires, Argentina, there is a slum called Villa Inflammable which is home to many people and various large companies. This community and its relationships with its environment, local businesses, and local governments are examined in the ethnography Flammable: Environmental Suffering in an Argentine Shantytown by Javier Auyero and Débora Alejandra Swistun. Auyero, an American sociology professor, and Swistun, an anthropologist from Flammable, used two and a half years of field work to build a comprehensive picture of the community's historical and current pollution status. Throughout the book, the authors examine the effects of high levels of pollution on the residents of Flammable and their ability to take action on their own behalf. Auyero and Swistun see the neighborhood as a “potential site for collective mobilization against environmental suffering” because the area is clearly polluted and businesses in the area could be responsible. In reality, however, the inhabitants of Flammable are dominated by the structures around them. Although they display certain methods of action, structural dominance dictates how they act and how they perceive their own environment and community. To help place the residents of Flammable on the spectrum of action, direct action - individuals striving to improve their situation themselves - must be taken into account. Auyero and Swistun note that Flammable residents acted as agents in an attempt to improve their situation in a matter involving the installation of high-voltage wires directly above some residents' homes. Residents of these homes, and others, feared that "the electromagnetic field generated by the wires [would] strike the middle of a sheet of paper...and allow testing for lead poisoning, many do." not receive the test for fear of losing this support. Shell's power and influence within the community discourages people from acting as agents, for fear that Shell will stop employing their families or stop providing medical care and other assistance . The residents of Flammable have limited agency within their community due to various influences. Despite the possibility of direct action in the face of a sudden change in the environment, the use of indirect agents and the predominance of structures testify to the dependence of inhabitants on external assistance. Works Cited Auyero, Javier and Débora Alejandra Swistun. Flammable: environmental suffering in an Argentinian slum. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. “Symbolic Power/Symbolic Violence.” In Key Concepts in Critical Social Theory. London: Sage United Kingdom, 2005.