Jordan Levy is a sociocultural anthropologist with a research program focused on state formation, political culture, and out-migration in Honduras. He has been studying Honduras and conducting non-governmental (NGO) work in the country since 2001. He was present during the 2009 military coup, and has since studied how these events polarized Honduran society and have increased different forms of violence.
Dr. Levy’s doctoral dissertation focused on the political activism of schoolteachers and post-coup policies of governance. He has conducted expensive ethnographic research in Tegucigalpa and the Honduran South, through which he has learned about Hondurans’ experiences with gang-related violence, gender-based violence, and the persecution of political activists. At DePaul University (Chicago) he teaches a variety of courses for the Anthropology major, is an affiliated faculty member of the Latin American & Latino Studies program, and serves on the DePaul Migration Collaborative advisory council.
LGBTQ; Child abuse; gender-based violence, domestic violence; Forced marriage; Trafficking; Land Tenure Disputes; Ethnic, religious, or tribal discrimination or persecution; Torture/Risk of political persecution/Risk from state actors; Risk from non-state actors; risk of retaliation; safe internal relocation; sufficiency of protection; healthcare access/health systems capacity; mental illness; HIV/AIDS; gang-related violence; political violence (including extrajudicial killings and or the hiring of gang members or police officers as hitmen); targeting of political activists, especially schoolteachers, journalists, intellectuals, and students
I have been serving as an expert witness since 2017, having worked on over 100 different cases in the U.S. and over 50 in the U.K. I have ample experience testifying and being cross-examined by the Department of Homeland Security (US), and addressing questions from Respondent attorneys with the Home Office (UK). I have been qualified in immigration court as an expert on gang-related violence, domestic & gender-based violence, police and; military-related violence, political violence and persecution of activists; issues of childhood neglect, racism and discrimination against Garifuna and other Indigenous groups; and violence against a range of other particular social groups in Honduras (eg. teachers, journalists, lawyers, Muslims, members of the LGBT community). For U.S. immigration courts, I also have experience testifying on behalf of third-country nationals who fear being removed to Honduras per the Asylum Cooperative Agreement (ACA). I am fluent in Spanish, a language in which I conduct all my research and hold an undergraduate degree.
Levy, Jordan. (2022). “Reluctant State Agents: Schoolteachers and Governing Authorities in Post-Coup Honduras.” Political and Legal Anthropology Review. [DOI: 10.1111/plar.12499]
Levy, Jordan. (2020). “Honduran Political Culture and Ambivalent Experiences during the Outbreak and Immediate Aftermath of the 2009 Coup.” A Contracorriente: Una Revista de Estudios Latinoamericanos. 17(3): 227–254.
Levy, Jordan and Sandra Estrada. (2020). “‘La Gente de Washington es la Más Tranquila’ (People from Washington are the Most Laid-Back): An Ethnographic Perspective on Honduran and Salvadoran Migration to the Pacific Northwest.” Journal of Northwest Anthropology. 54(1):1–21.
Levy, Jordan. (2019). “Reforming Schools, Disciplining Teachers: Decentralization and Privatization of Education in Honduras.” Anthropology and Education Quarterly 50(2):170–188.
Levy, Jordan. (2017). “Schoolteachers and National ‘Public’ Education in Honduras: Navigating the Reforms and Re-Founding the State.” Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology 22(1):137–156.