Dr Muhammad Kavesh

Director | South Asia Research Institute

Australian Research Council DECRA Fellow

Anthropology | School of Culture, History and Language

College of Asia and Pacific | Australian National University

I am an anthropologist interested in ethics, multispecies anthropology, decolonization, anthropology of Islam, multisensory analysis, and the geopolitics of present-day South Asia. I am the author of "Animal Enthusiasms: Life Beyond Cage and Leash in Rural Pakistan" (2021) and the lead editor of "Nurturing Alternative Futures: Living with Diversity in a More-than-Human World" (2024). I have also co-edited two special journal issues: "Anthropology of Mutualism" (2023, Anthropology Today) and "Sense Making in a More-than-Human World" (2021, The Australian Journal of Anthropology). My research has been featured in prestigious journals such as American Anthropologist, American Ethnologist, Journal of Asian Studies, Oxford Development Studies, and South Asia. I am a recipient of the Australian Research Council's Discovery Early Career Research Award (DECRA), exploring the trade and use of animals for medicinal purposes.

  • PhD, Australian National University (2018) – Australian Government’s Endeavour Award recipient

  • Post-Doctoral Fellowship, Australian Anthropological Society (2019 - 2020)

  • Faculty of Arts and Science Post-Doctoral Fellowship, University of Toronto (2021 - 2022)