Nisarg Mehta is a political sociologist and postdoctoral Teaching Fellow in the Department of Sociology and the College. Using ethnographic and archival methods, his research takes a multidisciplinary approach to examine the intersection of identity, culture and politics. His current book project examines the role the Indian diaspora plays in the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s national and global ambitions. Based on over two years of cumulative fieldwork in India and the US, as well as historical analysis of documents from public and private archives in both sites, it advances a new account of the relationship between diaspora, nationalism, and statecraft in the emerging world order.

Nisarg received his PhD in Sociology from the University of Chicago, where he was Dissertation Fellow at the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture. His research has been supported by the Fulbright Foundation, the American Sociological Association, and the National Science Foundation. In the 2024–25 academic year, he will teach courses in the Sociology Department and in the Self, Culture, and Society Core sequence.