We Were Never Meant to Be Neutral: Scholar-Activism and the Ethics of Alignment in Femicide Research

Abstract

This article examines the epistemic, political, and affective divides shaping femicide response in Mexico, highlighting the conflicting logics between formal institutional actors and grassroots feminist organizers. Drawing on 64 interviews and sustained community engagement across rural Michoacán and Mexico City, it introduces three co-produced conceptual frameworks—the IPV Perception Gap, Localized Violence Realities (LVR), and the Cultural Conflict of IPV Perception (CCIP)—to analyze how violence is defined, prioritized, and addressed. The article demonstrates how contrasting epistemologies and legitimacy claims produce incompatible approaches to justice. It also reflects on the author’s positionality as a survivor-researcher, arguing that scholar-activism is not a methodological stance, but an ethical imperative rooted in presence, accountability, and refusal of neutrality. By foregrounding lived experience and grassroots epistemologies, the study calls for a feminist criminology that is not only critical but also committed to those confronting violence on the ground.