Sensing Paradise: The two sides of Cancun

By Tania Ocampo-García, London School of Economics (LSE) 

How do residents experience environmental change and rapid urbanisation in a city that  is both environmentally fragile and economically dependent on international tourism for  its existence? 

Nested in the Yucatan Peninsula, lies Cancun: a state-led tourism project developed  from the ground up in the 1970s. Although Cancun maintains its position as Mexico's top  tourist destination 55 years after its foundation, the city presents two contrasting,  contradictory and unjust realities. 

“Caribbean Fantasy”, popularly known as “El Ceviche”, is an iconic landmark and  meeting point for celebrations and demonstrations in Cancun’s city centre. Photo by author (2025). 

Despite its global renown, Cancun remains an under-researched city that exposes the  intersecting challenges of climate change, environmental harms and labour precarity  between a developmental state, property developers, and Indigenous communities. A  report by Mexico’s Ministry of the Interior (2022) highlighted that two-thirds of migrants  who were born elsewhere in Mexico and live in the state of Quintana Roo, where Cancun  is located, come from states characterised for having a high proportion of Indigenous populations (Yucatan, Tabasco, Veracruz and Chiapas).

Re-immersion in the field 

In the summer of 2025, I had the opportunity to undertake pilot research thanks to the  generous support of the Society of Latin American Studies through its PG Research  Support Grant. This scoping trip allowed me to re-immerse myself in the city I called  home most of my life, create a network of potential collaborators for my long-term  fieldwork in 2026, and engage with local researchers who provided insights and  resources that I had not been able to access in the UK. Through these engagements and  interviews, I realised there were realities I had not grasped from my literature review  alone. For instance, I came across Dr Christine McCoy’s (2023) research, which reveals that three in every ten people in Cancun live in settlements not recognised by the  municipality: a jarring reality for Latin America's number-one tourist destination. 

The scoping trip also exposed me to the mobility challenges residents undertake daily.  The colectivos (small minivans that serve as public transport) were packed beyond  capacity during peak hours, while the long commutes people endure to reach the city  centre and growing congestion on main avenues highlighted how the city's infrastructure  has not kept pace with its population growth. 

Traffic jam near “El Ceviche” in the afternoon, commuters changing from the red buses  that operate in the hotel zone to minivans that take them home Photo by author (2025).

Lastly, I joined a few “green” campaigns in both the hotel zone and downtown Cancun.  Interestingly, clean-up campaigns to collect sargassum algae from the hotels’ seafront  were prioritised over those taking place in urban cenotes. These natural sinkholes,  sacred sites in the Mayan culture, are increasingly being used as e-waste dump sites by  residents (Ortega-Camacho et al., 2023) who may be unaware of the environmental  impact such practices have on the aquifer, which is paradoxically the main source of  freshwater in the whole region. 

Sargassum clean-up campaign carried out by local council staff in Playa Chac-Mool,  Hotel Zone. Photo by author (2025). 

These contrasting approaches to environmental challenges, from beachfront  beautification to neglected cenotes, from luxury resorts to irregular settlements,  epitomise how differently paradise is experienced by those who visit and those who  sustain it.  

This visit and the fact that 30% of residents live in labour precarity, in housing that does not conform to government guidelines, reaffirmed my commitment to use participatory methods to foreground residents’ perspectives in my work. Following engagements with civil society, I realised there is an opportunity to better understand Cancun’s environmental challenges through methodologies such as sensory ethnographies,  walking and storytelling. These insights will prove invaluable when I return to conduct fieldwork in 2026.

References 

McCoy Cador, C. E. (2023). ¿Quién responde por los invisibles de una ciudad? La  evolución histórica de los asentamientos humanos irregulares en la Zona Metropolitana  de Cancún. Universidad del Caribe; Itaca. 

Ortega-Camacho, D., Acosta-González, G., Sánchez-Trujillo, F., & Cejudo, E. (2023).  Heavy metals in the sediments of urban sinkholes in Cancun, Quintana Roo. Scientific  Reports, 13(1), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-34218-4 

Pineda Loperena, G., Bermúdez Lobera, J., Orea Orea, J. de D., Díaz Ferraro, M. R.,  Martínez de la Peña, M., Chávez Cruz, R., Noriega González, V., Tovar Martínez, L. A.,  Calderón San Martín, M. de los Á., Zamora Alarcón, M. S., Avilés Casas, P., & Osorno  Velázquez, R. del C. (2022). Diagnóstico de la movilidad humana en Quintana Roo.