I use the notion of the transitory as a way of accessing important changes in combined practices and conceptions of time and space and the new formations of collective life they anchor.  One the one hand, under the logic of the transitory perceptions of time disconnect from notions of linearity, directionality, progress, ascension, and development that served as organizing parameters in the previous formations. The movement in the case of the transitory is horizontal, lateral, not ascendant.  The transitory does not imply a direction towards a certain desired and anticipated future that is supposed to be better or more advanced or developed.  On the other hand, spatially the transitory points to constant circulation; to not being able or willing to settle down; to not investing in fixed spaces; to dislocation; and to going back and forth.   Of course, notions of linearity, progress and ascension continue to articulate several dimensions of the everyday, and there is still investment in fixed emplacement, but not in the same hegemonic way as in the past.  The analysis is framed from the perspective of transformations in the peripheries of São Paulo, Brazil, where I have conducted fieldwork since the late 1970s.