Residents of mining town resist relocation because of their attachments to place

By Huiying Cui

Introduction

Since 2016, Chinalco (Aluminum Corporation of China) has relocated over 95% of Morococha’s 5,000 residents to Nueva (New) Morococha in the region of Junín, Peru, 10 km away. This relocation was prompted by the company’s intent to mine the area through an open pit process, which would pose significant environmental and health risks to residents. Chinalco promised new infrastructure, schools, and jobs, and hired Social Capital Group to manage the move.

However, 25 families rejected the offer and still remain in Antigua Morococha, now a desolate town with blocked roads and no access to electricity, water, healthcare, school, or jobs. Residents formed the Defense and Development Front of the Interests of the Morococha District (FADDIM) to protest against Chinalco and the Peruvian state agency SENACE (National Environmental Certification Service for Sustainable Investments), accusing Chinalco of violating their human rights and harming their health and environment in contravention of constitutional law.

Analysis

Because of its colonial legacy and its role as a mining company town, Morococha’s urban infrastructure and social life have long been subordinated to the interests of mining companies, which limits people’s access to participation in planning.  During the planning and implementation of the relocation process, the Peruvian state employed a techno-managerial and marketized planning system in collaboration with a transnational company, reflecting the dominance of command planning in the Global South. As Bayat and Biekart (2009) suggest, cities are increasingly shaped by market logic rather than the needs of their inhabitants, and Morocha became one of such urban spaces of “extremes” of wealth and poverty, comfort and misery, community and alienation, and hope and despair (817).

Such planning reflects the State’s urge for “modernization” and “development” in a globalized context, which enabled Chinalco’s control over this area and the forced relocation of the residents in the name of safety and progress. This notion of development contrasts sharply with the residents’ aspirations, demonstrating the conflicting epistemologies between residents and development actors and the subsequent need for decolonial planning, as argued by Watson (2003) and Winkler (2018). Moreover, as Morococha is a mining town typically divided spatially between mining camps and the permanently settled “District”, its residents share a strong identity as miners and working class. While high mobility marks the town, property-owning residents in the central district have a deep attachment to the town (Shamsuddina and Mujang, 2008) as their “pueblo”, a place “cherished or valued by its resident population for all that it represents or means to them” (Friedman, 2010:154).

This attachment sparked resistance to the forced relocation. Property owners feared Antigua Morococha would become a ghost town and they would lose their identity, history, and sense of belonging. To them, Nueva Morococha seemed like a place filled with strangers, who will soon leave and rent their houses to other strangers (Miranda, 109). These concerns led to the formation of the FADDIM and prompted some families to remain in Antigua Morococha, their proper “pueblo”. Their presence in the ruins of Old Morococha acts as a “resistant text” (Winkler 2018), challenging Chinalco’s planning narrative.

Implications

In Morococha, as elsewhere in the Global South, planners see themselves as “innocent professionals” (Roy, 2007). However, by drawing on Western standards and theories in their designs without considering residents’ local knowledge, planners end up reproducing unequal social and economic structures. As Watson (2009) argues, the current westernized urban planning system promotes social and spatial exclusion, is anti-poor, and fails to secure environmental sustainability (151). As a result, marginalized residents either acquiesce to external pressures, engage in co-production (Siame, 2017; Watson, 2003), pursue informal economic or self-governance strategies (Addo 2024), or shift between invited and invented spaces (Miraftab 2009) to negotiate or resist planning interventions. In the case of Morococha, the “resistant texts” (Winkler, 2018) or rationalities associated with placemaking, community and memory have inspired residents to confront the mining industry, challenging planners’ assumptions of progress and development. Ultimately, the case of Morcocha illuminates the need for co-production and consensus-building in planning. Decolonial and post-structuralist approaches stress recognizing residents’ emotional and social ties to places, advocating for culturally sensitive, sustainable, and collaborative planning practices.

Chinalco has invested 4476 million dollars in the open pit Toromocho project. Source: https://operacionchina.convoca.pe/morococha/en.html

Old Morococha. Source: Diario de la Republica, available: https://repositorio.flacsoandes.edu.ec/bitstream/10469/17420/2/TFLACSO-2021YCH.pdf

Morococha “New City, December 2020. Source: Yeiddy Chávez Huapaya, FLACSO, Master’s Thesis, available: https://repositorio.flacsoandes.edu.ec/bitstream/10469/17420/2/TFLACSO-2021YCH.pdf

Lead has been found in the blood of Bertha Alania’s two younger children. Photo: Marco Alegre/Convoca, https://operacionchina.convoca.pe/morococha/en.html