Resilience and rebirth: the struggle of the women of UIRA in post-Otis acapulco

In this visual essay, I explore the resilience and challenges faced by indigenous migrant women in Acapulco as they navigate urban modernisation, systemic discrimination, and the aftermath of Hurricane Otis. The essay highlights their strategies of survival and the critical role played by the Union of Indigenous Residents in Acapulco, UIRA, in supporting women to preserve cultural identity and assert rights within an often hostile socio environmental urban landscape. Through narratives and visual documentation from ongoing collaboration with UIRA, I show how these women sustain families and community organisation on the beaches and in peripheral neighbourhoods, and how they mobilised for post Otis emergency response and recovery. The essay contributes to a broader understanding of migration, gender, and racial dynamics in urban Latin America by foregrounding women’s collective agency in conditions of exclusion, disaster risk, and uneven urbanisation.