Chetana Sabnis

Welcome! I am a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at Yale University. My research spans comparative politics, law and society, and feminist and queer theory, with a regional focus on India and the United States. I am advised by Elisabeth Wood, Joe Fischel, Dara Strolovitch and Egor Lazarev.

My dissertation, the Intimacy Contract, explains how states define families. I became interested in this question while poring over archives at the British Library in the summer of 2022. Like historians such as Durba Ghosh and Philippa Levine, I too was struck by the number of times British colonial officials alluded to having intimate relationships with local Indian women. I found myself wondering why these relationships were any less legitimate, a question I returned to repeatedly as I encountered intimate relationships between enslaved and their owners in the Ottoman Empire, friendships (like in Elena Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend), and married individuals and their non-marital partners in open relationships in New York.

Prior to Yale, I received an M.A. in Social Sciences from the University of Chicago and an integrated M.A. in Development Studies from IIT Madras, India. I grew up in Bangalore and now live in Brooklyn with my dog, daughter and partner.

I am more than happy to connect with early career researchers who are looking to explore an academic or policy career. Before pursuing a Ph.D., I spent over four years in the development sector working at institutions like the World Bank and J-PAL South Asia. You can contact me at chetana [dot] sabnis [at] yale [dot] edu.

Last updated: October 2026