Sara Casella-Colombeau

Sara Casella-Colombeau is a Lecturer (Maîtresse de conférences) at Université Grenoble-Alpes, affiliated with the ILCEA4 laboratory. Her research focuses on the sociology of public action, European integration, and migration policy implementation, particularly regarding border control, immigration surveillance, and the interplay between national and EU-level governance. She teaches courses on political and legal environments, international relations, and geopolitics of conflicts at the undergraduate and graduate levels.

• PhD in Political Science from Sciences Po Paris (2007-2013), with a dissertation on French border police practices post-Schengen.
• Postdoctoral research at University of Edinburgh (2016-2018), Institut Convergences Migrations (2018-2021), and other institutions.

Her publications examine comparative migration governance frameworks (France, Germany, UK), the evolution of border policing under Schengen, and the sociological dimensions of EU migration control. She co-edits critical atlases on migration and contributes to debates on regularization policies, Frontex, and the social consequences of bordering practices. Current responsibilities include co-leading the Migrations, Frontières, and International Relations research axis at ILCEA4 and the Graduate School EU Values at Université Grenoble-Alpes.

Key article trends include: the institutionalization of irregular migration control, the recalibration of EU border regimes during crises (e.g., 2011, 2015), the technical and political rationality behind regularization policies, and the sociological construction of migrant populations as targets of state surveillance. Her work bridges political science, sociology, and comparative policy analysis, emphasizing empirical case studies and historical institutionalism.