Dr Priyasha Saksena

Profile

I joined the School of Law in March 2019. I am a graduate of Harvard University (SJD) and National Law School of India University (BA LLB). Prior to joining the University of Leeds, I was a visiting researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory. I also have experience in private practice, having been an associate at a corporate law firm. 

Research interests

I am a legal historian focusing on the development of legal concepts and institutions within the British empire and their contemporary effects. 

Within the broad theme of imperial legal history, I classify my work into two strands. In the first strand, I examine how public international law has been used as a language to exercise authority over peoples and territories. My book, Sovereignty, International Law, and the Princely States of Colonial South Asia, focused on debates over the legal status of the princely states to trace the varied meanings of the doctrine of sovereignty in South Asia. The book was shortlisted for the Hart-SLSA Prize for Early Career Academics 2024. A chapter from the book was previously published as “Jousting Over Jurisdiction: Sovereignty and International Law in Late Nineteenth-Century South Asia” in the Law and History Review and was awarded the American Society for Legal History’s Sutherland Prize for best article on the legal history of Britain and/or the British empire in 2021. 

The second strand of my research focuses on how law has influenced the experiences of peoples moving across the British empire. I am interested in tracing the regulation of migrant healthcare workers both during the age of empire and in the present day. I am pursuing this interest as co-investigator on the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council standard grant Making it to the Registers: Documenting Migrant Carers’ Experiences of Registration and Fitness to Practise (valued at £535,114), alongside principal investigator Marie-Andrée Jacob, co-investigator Nasreen Ali, and project partner British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin. The project aims to produce a historically informed account of the experiences of migrant healthcare workers in navigating the system of professional regulation in the UK. More information is available on the project website: https://makingregisters.leeds.ac.uk/. 

• Making it to the Registers: Documenting Migrant Carers’ Experiences of Registration and Fitness to Practice

Qualifications

• SJD, Harvard University
• BA LLB, National Law School of India University

Professional memberships

• American Society for Legal History
• Law and Society Association
• Socio-Legal Studies Association

Research groups and institutes

• Centre for Law and Social Justice
• Centre for Innovation and Research in Legal Education

Current postgraduate researchers

• Damarie Kalonzo