Research Areas
Citizenship, Immigration, Law & Social Policy, Latinx Studies
Biography
Jane Lilly López is an associate professor of Sociology at Brigham Young University. She received her PhD in Sociology from the University of California, San Diego in 2018. Her research interests include citizenship (as both a legal status and a lived experience/identity), immigration, integration, and the effects of law in the public and private realms of everyday life. Her book, Unauthorized Love: Mixed-Citizenship Couples Negotiating Intimacy, Immigration, and the State (Stanford University Press, 2022), examines the intersections of immigration, citizenship, and family in the law and in everyday life. (Author interview about Unauthorized Love on the New Books Network.)
Courses taught:
SOC 112: Current Social Problems
SOC 404: Qualitative Research Methods
SOC 423: Sociology of Immigration
SOC 490R: Sociology of Citizenship
SOC 604: Ethnographic Research Methods
FHSS 351: Latinx Civil Rights Seminar
GWS 341: Women and Global Migration
Selected Publications
(*indicates undergraduate student coauthor; **indicates graduate student coauthor)
Peer-Reviewed Books
López, Jane Lilly. November 2022. Unauthorized Love: Mixed-Citizenship Couples Negotiating Intimacy, Immigration, and the State. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=32919
Peer-Reviewed Articles
Augustine-Adams, Kif, Hayley Pierce, Melissa Alcaraz, and Jane Lilly López. Online First (2025). “Virtuality for Real Children: Unaccompanied Minors and US Immigration Custody.” Journal on Migration and Human Security. https://doi.org/10.1177/23315024251314852
Alcaraz, Melissa, Hayley Pierce, Jane Lilly López, and Kif Augustine-Adams. Online First (2024). “A Demographic Profile of Unaccompanied Minor Children in ORR Custody, 2014-2023.” International Migration Review. https://doi.org/10.1177/01979183241252034
López, Jane Lilly. Online First (2024). “In/Visible Line: The Physical and Symbolic Othering Power of the US-Mexico Border.” Journal of Borderlands Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/08865655.2024.2338752
Shoaf, Hannah**, Hayley Pierce, and Jane Lilly López. 2024. “Witches, Victims, and Villains: #MeToo and the Political Polarization of Sexual Violence.” Violence Against Women 30(8): 1910-1933. https://doi.org/10.1177/10778012241239949
López, Jane Lilly, and Faith Williams*. 2024. “Success as Self-Determination: A Subject-Centered Analysis of Immigrant Integration.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 50(10): 2574-2593. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2023.2232557
López, Jane Lilly, Genevra Munoa*, Catalina Valdez*, and Nadia Terron Ayala*. 2021. “Shades of Belonging: The Intersection of Race and Religion in Utah Immigrants’ Social Integration.” Social Sciences 10(7): 246-254; special issue, “Immigration and White Supremacy in the 21st Century.” https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci10070246
López, Jane Lilly. 2020. “Together and Apart: Transnational Life in the US-Mexico Border Region.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 46(1): 242-259. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2018.1523003
López, Jane Lilly. 2015. “Impossible Families: Mixed-Citizenship Status Couples and the Law.” Law & Policy 37(1-2): 93-118. https://doi.org/10.1111/lapo.12032