Exploring Femicide and the War on Drugs in Mexico

The Capstone Project offered us the chance to engage directly with real-world issues, build meaningful professional skills, and produce policy-relevant work that has the potential to make a difference. It has three stages: a group research paper, an individual policy paper, and an action appeal.

Investigating Femicide and Militarisation in Mexico

With three women in our group, the topic of femicide felt both personally significant as well as urgent. Our research focused on the question: What explains regional variations in femicide rates in Mexico in the context of the War on Drugs? Over five months, we studied four states, Nuevo León, Morelos, Querétaro, and Yucatán, and uncovered complex links between gender-based violence and structural factors such as militarisation, governance, and security policy.

By comparing regions with both high and low levels of violence, we were able to identify multiple contributing variables: homicide rates, cartel presence, political appointments, leadership stability, gender policy environments, and socioeconomic conditions. While our findings supported the existing theory that higher levels of violence correlate with higher rates of femicide, we also revealed the extent to which this is a multi-causal, multi-factorial phenomenon.

Our research suggests that simplistic explanations are inadequate and that serious policy responses must address broader institutional and societal factors.

The King’s–UNAM partnership, which connected us with leading academics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), was a huge help to our project. Their generous support and expertise were instrumental in shaping and deepening the quality of our research. Collaborating with UNAM faculty provided us with the opportunity to access region-specific data, learn from experts in the field, and integrate locally grounded knowledge into our policy analysis.

Research in Mexico: Supported by the Global Research Grant

Midway through the Capstone, we discovered the Global Research Grant: a unique funding opportunity offered through King’s to support international research and collaboration with partner institutions. With the help of our academic supervisor and the UNAM–UK coordinator at King’s, we submitted a successful group application and were awarded a grant that covered our travel, joint accommodation, and transport expenses there. This support enabled us to spend two weeks in Mexico City, immersing ourselves academically, linguistically, and culturally in the context of our research.

This opportunity was especially valuable as we began working on our individual policy papers, each of which builds upon the foundation of our group research but focuses on a specific aspect of the issue. Being on the ground allowed us to conduct in-depth interviews, sharpen our Spanish-language skills in academic and professional contexts, and engage directly with the communities and institutions affected by the issues we were studying. This experience transformed our understanding of the challenges we had previously only encountered on paper.

Collaborating with UNAM in Mexico City

Our time in Mexico City was centred around UNAM’s main campus in University City, where we made full use of the university’s libraries, met with researchers at the Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas and the Instituto de Investigaciones Jurídicas, and connected with local students.

These interactions helped us explore the socioeconomic and legal dimensions of violence, corruption, and governance, adding vital nuances to our work.

One of the highlights of the trip was our visit to UNAM’s Juriquilla Campus in Querétaro, generously facilitated by UNAM-UK Coordinator Grecia Suárez, who kindly accompanied us on the six-hour round trip. There, we met and interviewed Dr. Iliana Padilla whose work on femicide had greatly influenced our own. During our visit, we also had the opportunity to meet with UNAM students as well as Dr. Heriberto Ruiz Tafoya, and discuss our research, their own academic studies, and what our different university experiences have been like.

We spoke with them about postgraduate opportunities at King’s College London and discussed how our current academic programme might relate to their own research interests. We also heard first-hand from many of the students about their experiences growing up and living in Mexico, which provided deeply personal insight into the issues we were studying. Our conversations sparked interest in future collaboration between King’s and UNAM, including the possibility of joint courses or exchange programmes.

Cultural Immersion and On-the-Ground Insight

While the trip had a clear academic focus, it also provided invaluable cultural immersion that helped us ground our research in lived experience.

One unforgettable day involved hiking in El Tepozteco National Park with Grecia, where we climbed up to an ancient Aztec temple at 2,300 meters above sea level. That same day, we visited Cuernavaca, the capital of Morelos, and one of the four states we studied in our research paper. Walking the city’s streets added historical and cultural depth to our understanding of the area.

During the weekends, we explored Mexico City’s many vibrant and colourful neighbourhoods, including Roma, Coyoacán, and San Ángel. We were lucky enough to attend a local cactus festival and visit several cultural landmarks such as the Frida Kahlo Museum, Diego Rivera murals, the Palace of Fine Arts, and the Mexica (or Aztec) Pyramids of Teotihuacan and even climb the Pyramid of the Moon. These experiences brought to life the country’s rich history and allowed us to engage more deeply with the context of our work.

One particularly powerful moment came when we visited the Angel of Independence monument, near which a wall of hundreds of posters displaying the faces and names of disappeared persons had been placed. These public expressions of grief and protest offered a visceral reminder of the human rights challenges still facing Mexico today and reinforced the urgency and importance of our research into femicide and violence. We also saw the Antimonumenta in front of the Palace of Bellas Artes—a striking symbol of the ongoing demand for justice for women affected by gender-based violence in Mexico. Having chosen this monument as the cover image for our research paper, seeing it in person was very meaningful and brought an added sense of connection to our work.

On our return journey to London, we made a brief stop in Yucatán, another state included in our research. There, we were able to observe regional differences in militarisation and the presence of the National Guard, elements we had studied in theory and were now witnessing in person. This final stop provided valuable visual and spatial validation for many of the themes we had explored in our group paper.

An Amazing Experience

This research trip was immensely productive and personally transformative. We were able to visit three of the four states central to our group project, conduct high-level academic interviews, and participate in meaningful academic and cultural discussions with students and faculty alike. The opportunity to conduct interviews in Spanish not only improved our language proficiency but also helped us communicate more confidently in a professional setting.