Chicken visit. How do we think about the love that people carry for toxic places? At first, La Oroya's environs unsettled me. My knowledge of the city's environmental lead contamination wedded with the visual cues of barren hillsides and muddy waters overwhelmed my sensorial experience with agitation. But I knew that many who lived in La Oroya also experienced its environs otherwise. Many people love La Oroya and defend the city's right to exist as it is-- toxicity and all. Most outsiders struggle to understand or believe the sincerity of this love. The disjuncture of toxicity and love seemed essential to an ethnographic understanding of the divisive politics of this place. I began experiencing La Oroya's beauty, and the potential for love, for the first time as I wrote field notes on a door stoop shortly after an interview. As the setting sun refracted off the mountains, a bright blue barrel took on an expressive silhouette. A chicken hopped into view, approached me, and began pecking the paper of my notebook. The lively scene triggered an unexpected sensation of joy and I began to imagine and feel what it might be like to love the smelting city.
Chicken visit. How do we think about the love that people carry for toxic places? At first, La Oroya's environs unsettled me. My knowledge of the city's environmental lead contamination wedded with the visual cues of barren hillsides and muddy waters overwhelmed my sensorial experience with agitation. But I knew that many who lived in La Oroya also experienced its environs otherwise. Many people love La Oroya and defend the city's right to exist as it is-- toxicity and all. Most outsiders struggle to understand or believe the sincerity of this love. The disjuncture of toxicity and love seemed essential to an ethnographic understanding of the divisive politics of this place. I began experiencing La Oroya's beauty, and the potential for love, for the first time as I wrote field notes on a door stoop shortly after an interview. As the setting sun refracted off the mountains, a bright blue barrel took on an expressive silhouette. A chicken hopped into view, approached me, and began pecking the paper of my notebook. The lively scene triggered an unexpected sensation of joy and I began to imagine and feel what it might be like to love the smelting city.