In 2015 De León began a long-term photoethnographic project focused on understanding the daily lives of Honduran smugglers who profit from transporting migrants across the length of Mexico. In this talk he will use ethnographic data to discuss the relationship between transnational gangs and the human smuggling industry and outline the complicated role that photography plays as a field method and data source in this violent and ethically challenging context.

Speaker:
Jason De León is Executive Director of the Undocumented Migration Project and the Colibri Center for Human Rights. He is also Professor of Anthropology and Chicana/o Studies at UCLA. De León is head curator of the ongoing global exhibition “Hostile Terrain 94,” author of the award-winning book “The Land of Open Graves: Living and Dying on the Migrant Trail” and a 2017 MacArthur Fellow.

Discussants:
Agustín Fuentes, Anthropology, Princeton University
Patricia Fernandez-Kelly, Sociology, Princeton University

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