Seeing with spirit eyes: Photographs from women human rights defenders and their spiritual activism at the US/Mexican borderlands

By Faval Copedo | OMC 2025

Kali 2024. Niñez Silenciada / Silenced Childhood [human rights defender]

La Lucha/The fight and Vida y Muerte/Life and Death are the two predominant themes that emerged from a participatory arts-based project using photo elicitation with 8 women human rights defenders in Tijuana, at the US/Mexican borderlands. The researcher facilitated this project in 2024 as part of her PhD research with human rights defenders in collaboration with Alma Migrante, a Mexican civil society organisation (CSO) which supports human rights defenders working within the context of mobility in the region. Alma Migrante provides legal advice as well as designs and delivers community strategies to protect human rights defenders working with migrants in the Baja California Mexico region. In Tijuana and Mexicali, these women defenders are dedicated to safeguarding the rights of migrants and asylum seekers, who frequently seek refuge in the United States.

The research identified five themes of La Lucha/The fight and Vida y Muerte/Life and Death, La Cuidado/The Care, El Complemento Fortaleza/The Additional Strength, and Comunidad y Joy/Community and Joy. However, this article focuses on the two main themes and personal stories of defenders, highlighting the injustices they encounter and pivotal moments that inspired them to support migrants.

Women human rights defenders who advocate for migrants often share migration experiences themselves and play a vital role in protecting the rights of those in transit through investigation, documentation, and advocacy against injustices. These women defenders also support vulnerable migrants by offering supplies, legal assistance, medical care, and community integration support. However, women defenders regularly face targeted violence from state authorities and gangs as they resist governmental power and patriarchal norms limiting women to domestic roles. Their gender, along with intersecting factors like sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, and migration status, significantly influences the unique risks and violence they encounter daily.

The researcher analysed 31 photographs and filmed narratives from the women defenders using Gloria Anzaldúa’s framework of Borderlands Theory and specifically her later concept of spiritual activism. Gloria Anzaldúa was a Chicana author, academic, and activist raised along the Texas-Mexico border. Her writings resonated with those navigating multiple cultures, identities, and spiritual beliefs, particularly women of colour. Anzaldúa views spiritual activism as the connection between personal healing and social justice,  it is about addressing external injustices while nurturing your inner self. She believes genuine change requires both political action and spiritual depth. Anzaldúa's concepts illustrate that spiritual activism transcends self-healing and moves into material and political action. 

La Lucha/The Fight

The central theme of La Lucha, meaning ‘the fight' was vital for women defenders in their work supporting migrants. They noted that this terminology reflects their enduring resistance amid violence, systemic injustice, and resilience.​

Kali 2024. Migrantes olvidadas/Forgotten migrants [human rights defender]

Human rights advocate Kali (pseudonym) titled her photograph Migrantes olvidadas (Forgotten migrants) to highlight the demand for truth and transparency from border authorities. The photo presents displaced Mexican women and children at a makeshift camp at the El Chaparral border crossing in 2019, waiting to enter the United States. Authorities stated a bus would arrive to take them to Mexicali for a faster border crossing. Kali explains that:

They never reached Mexicali, and we remain oblivious to their whereabouts. These are just a few of the countless issues that often go unmentioned by both the government and the media. Many actions taken by the government remain overlooked in public discourse. They never share it with the media, such as newspapers or similar outlets. 

Through her words, Kali conveys that La Lucha represents a relentless fight against authorities that either conceal information or overlook certain realities entirely. The synergy between Anzaldúa's spiritual activism and the efforts of the women defenders like Kali in Mexico showcases the powerful effect of intertwining personal healing with political resistance. Their actions illuminate the journey toward a just and more compassionate society, where the dignity of all individuals is recognised and the voices of the oppressed are amplified.

Vida y Muerte/ Life and Death

The workshop's second key theme was the concept of Life and Death (Vida y Muerte) and its significance for migrant advocacy. The theme emphasises the vital and perilous role of women defenders in safeguarding migrants' rights and lives amid violence and gender-based oppression. Their efforts serve as advocacy and personal resistance, often putting them in life-threatening situations with vulnerable populations.

Ximena 2024. Nacer y Renacer/Birth and Rebirth [human rights defender]

Defender Ximena is a midwife specialising in home births for migrant women. In her photo (Fig 2), Ximena holds her newborn in a bathtub shortly after birth. Ximena's transformation comes from her experiences as an adolescent mother during childbirth in Mexico City. Ximena discussed her trauma from feeling alone and unsupported as her family and husband were not permitted to be present during childbirth. She reflected on the poor communication about her medical situation and the lack of informed consent for the birth. She noted that no food or drinks were provided. Ximena experienced severe trauma during childbirth, especially due to the prolonged separation from her newborn son. 

I decided that I didn’t want that for any other mother or any other baby… so that wound, that terrible wound was transformed into my path to become a midwife and to know that I was going to protect other mothers and babies, and I started being a midwife catching babies in a respectful way and a loving way.

Ximena's experience of the “terrible wound” from the Mexican healthcare system during childbirth—marked by neglect, coercion, and abuse—echoes Gloria Anzaldúa's “open wound” metaphor, highlighting the suffering inflicted on marginalised groups, especially women of colour.

Anzaldúa's spiritual activism serves to empower women defenders situated within the borderlands, effectively intertwining la lucha — the fight — with the concepts of vida y muerte, or life and death.  These women exhibit resistance to oppression through the practices of care, resilience, and ritual, thereby transforming suffering into empowerment. Their work resonates with Anzaldúa's vision, as it seeks to heal collective wounds while simultaneously addressing violence through spiritual resilience grounded in both survival and transformation.

Faval Copedo 

Faval is a New Zealander/ Australian and a PhD Candidate at the University of the Sunshine Coast (UniSC), Australia.  Faval has worked as a Settlement and Engagement Officer, and on numerous community development projects in youth arts and cultural development, always using creative processes and community cultural development principles, with a strong focus on individual experiences of migration. In 2019 Faval graduated with a Master of International Development (USC) after completing internships with NGOs which support migrants seeking asylum in the U.S, in Tijuana on the U.S/ Mexico border, and in Mexico City. Her PhD research is an arts-based research project that explores the lived experiences of human rights defenders on the U.S/Mexican border.