Rosario Rizzo Lara

Bio

Rosario Rizzo Lara is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology. She was born and raised in Mexico. She is passionate about migration, migration policy, social movements, and human rights. She has lived and studied in various countries, including the US, Mexico, Belgium, Germany, and Denmark.  Her primary expertise is in Mexican and Central American migration. She is particularly interested in studying migration policy in Mexico and the US, the causes of migration, the effects of immigration enforcement, human rights violations and violence, and social movements.

Her current project focuses on the Migrant Caravans from Central America to the United States. She has published peer-reviewed articles and has a forthcoming book on the topic. Her work is mainly qualitative, and she recently co-authored a book on the study of motives using semi-structured interviews. 

Main publications include:

• Rizzo Lara, R. and Torre Cantalapiedra, E. (2026) “Theorizing Participation in the Migrant Caravans: Perspectives from Migration and Social Movement Studies.” Migration Studies, 14 (1), March 2026, mnag005, https://doi.org/10.1093/migration/mnag005
• Vila-Henninger L. and Rizzo Lara, R. (2025). Analyzing Motives in Semi-Structured Interview Data– A Guide for the Social Sciences. New York: Springer Nature.  https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-96-7834-1
• Rizzo Lara, R. de la L. (2024). Managing Irregularized Migration in Mexico: Rhetoric of a Renewed Approach. Journal of Borderlands Studies, 39(3), 433–454. https://doi.org/10.1080/08865655.2022.2115391
• Rizzo Lara, R. (2021) La Caminata del Migrante: a social movement, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies,  47:17, 3891-3910, DOI: 10.1080/1369183X.2021.1940111

Teaching:

• SOC 4510 Sociology of Migration (in person and online)
• SOC 4200 Social Movements (in person and online)
• SOC 5900  Seminar in Sociology: Hispanic, Latino, or Chicano? An Introduction to Latix Studies
• SOC 1000- Introduction to Sociology