I am currently involved in two projects:
(1) Migrating, Within and Without: An Ethnography of Internal and Transnational Migration in a Oaxacan Community:
This project, part of my doctoral research, studies migration in a Zapotec community in Oaxaca, Mexico. Based on 20 months of ethnographic research conducted in Oaxaca, Mexico City, and in Oregon (U.S), I found that internal and transnational migrations are interconnected processes shaped by kinship and ideas of femininity and masculinity. I conclude by exploring the ways in which different forms of mobility produce ongoing negotiations that transform gender and social relationships. By highlighting the experiences of internal migrants—especially women who work as domestic employees and men who have joined the military—my research reinvigorates anthropological discussions of migration by problematizing who counts as a migrant. Migration scholars often examine different forms of migration as theoretically and empirically distinct; my project contributes to migration studies by using a conceptual framework that shows how these two forms of migration are interconnected processes.
Some publications that are part of this project are the following:
“Navigating the City: Internal Migration of Oaxacan Indigenous Women.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 43(5):849-865.
“Uncertain futures: The Unfinished Houses of Undocumented Migrants in Oaxaca, Mexico.” American Anthropologist 119(2):209-222.
““We came for the Cartilla but we stayed for the Tortilla”: Enlisting in the Military as a Form of Migration for Zapotec Men.” Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology.
(2) Animal Bodies, Human Voices: Violence and the Animal Rights Movement in Mexico. 
This project seeks to understand how animal rights/well-being activists operate in the current context of violence within Mexico. More specifically, I am 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. I have been conducting fieldwork for this project in Ciudad Juárez since 2017.
If you are interested in learning more about this project, you can listen to a radio interview I did with KTEP:
Iván Sandoval-Cervantes 