Teachers and students navigating urban violence in Honduras: A view from a school on the margins of El Progreso

Honduras has some of the highest homicide rates in the world, accompanied by rife criminal violence and organised crime. Recent research has explored links between the state and organised crime, bringing into view Honduras’ political economy of violence (Dudley, 2011, 2016, 2017; Puerta & Dudley, 2017). Yet despite having become foci of urban violence, schools have largely been left out of the picture. This ethnographic research, based on three months of fieldwork at a public high school on the urban margins of the city of El Progreso, explores how the political economy of Honduras’ urban violence is understood and navigated by people at the school through their daily lives. I focus on two examples: first, a police-run gang prevention programme implemented at the school, and second, navigations of the reflections and reproductions of gang structures and dynamics from the barrio at the school. The findings generate insights into how teachers and students respond to the ongoing enmeshment between state and non-state actors in urban violence in Honduras.