Tiresias in Flammable Shantytown: Toward a Tempography of Domination 1 Javier Auyero 2 and De´bora Swistun 3 Based on 30 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Flammable shantytown, a highly contaminated poor barrio in Argentina, this article examines the links between environmental suffering, social domination, and collective perceptions of time. We show that the ways residents think and feel about (and cope with) pollution are deeply entangled with their perceptions of the past and of the future. We thus argue that an ethnographic account of the lived experiences of contamina- tion should also be a tempography, that is, a thick description of the vernacular sociotemporal order. KEY WORDS: Argentina; contamination; environment; ethnography; power; time. INTRODUCTION They are like Negroes asking when they will be given freedom and equality; their pressing is the pressing of all disadvantaged groups for a timetable. Everett C. Hughes In one of the many versions of the Greek myth that have been handed to us, early in life Tiresias surprises Athena while she is taking a bath. In punishment for having seen her naked, Zeus’s daughter blinds 1 We presented parts of this article at the ‘‘Practicing Pierre Bourdieu’’ conference at the University of Michigan, at the Ethnografeast III in Lisbon, and at the centers for Latin American Studies at the University of Pittsburgh and at Syracuse University. We thank participants at these diverse fora for their feedback. We are also grateful to Lauren Joseph, Eileen Otis, Naomi Rosenthal, and the Sociological Forum anonymous reviewers for their comments. 2 Sociology, University of Texas, 2501 University Burdine Hall, Room 564, Austin, Texas 78712; e-mail: auyero@austin.utexas.edu. 3 Nieder-Ramsta¨dter Str. 189A Zi.4 64285 Darmstadt, Germany. Sociological Forum, Vol. 24, No. 1, March 2009 (Ó 2009) DOI: 10.1111/j.1573-7861.2008.01084.x 1 0884-8971/09/0300-0031/0 Ó 2009 Eastern Sociological Society