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Iván Sandoval-Cervantes is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). He received his BA in anthropology from the Universidad de las Américas-Puebla (UDLAP), an MSc in philosophy of social science from the London School of Economics, and a PhD in anthropology from the University of Oregon. His previous research project focused on internal and transnational migration from Mexico to the United States, his research has appeared in academic journals such as American Anthropologists, the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, and the Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology.

Iván’s current research project “Animal Bodies, Human Voices: Violence and the Animal Rights Movement in Mexico,” seeks to understand how animal rights/well-being activists operate in the current context of violence within Mexico. More specifically, Iván is interested in how such activists describe, explain, combat, and represent violence directed towards non-human animals, in relation to non-human bodies, and to activism centered on humans and human bodies. Looking at how Mexican animal rights/well-being activists frame their efforts, discursively and materially, can potentially inform how we conceptualize the relationship between violence, justice, and human/non-human bodies. Iván has conducted ethnographic fieldwork in his hometown of Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua since 2017, where he has observed and written about animal rights/well-being activists navigating the Mexican legal system.