Natasha Patel

Natasha Patel is a PhD candidate in Political Science. Her work theorizes about social movements, especially those that seek to address deep, structural causes of contemporary problems. In her case examples, Hawaiian Sovereignty, Prison Industrial Complex Abolition, and Christian Dominionism, she asks: “why do some movements that seek vast structural change ask their members to undergo a highly localized politics of personal transformation?” The research reveals why some “highly aspirational” political movements theorize a strong connection between structural transformation and personal transformation, and encourages us to consider how personal practices are socially transformative. In addition to her dissertation research, Natasha is a fellow of the Institute for Critical and Social Inquiry at the New School, a fellow of the Emotions and Society Lab at the University of California Riverside (directed by Myisha Cherry), and Co-Chair of the Critical Carceral Studies Collective at the Stanford Humanities Center. She received a BA in Philosophy and Honors in Education from Stanford University in 2016 and a Fulbright-Nehru Research Award from the U.S. government in 2018.