Amit studies how conservation interventions in Central India reorganize interspecies relations between humans, nonhuman species, and land, producing new forms of social difference and ecological governance. Specifically, he examines how large carnivore reintroductions intersect with caste hierarchies, conservation science, and state-led land-use regimes to reshape livelihoods, cultural meanings, and futures for communities living in and around protected areas.​ His dissertation research focuses on how species politics and conservation expertise operate as modes of governance. Through long-term, multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork, he follows conservation scientists, forest department officials, local people, and nonhuman animals across forest–village boundaries. He traces how ecological data, behavioral science, and conservation narratives circulate between institutions and everyday life to examine how conservation transforms not only landscapes, but also social relations, moral claims, and the conditions under which certain lives, human and nonhuman, are made governable. His dissertation research is supported by the Wenner-Gren Foundation's Dissertation Fieldwork Grant, National Geographic Award, Rufford Foundation 1st Small Grant, UGA Anthropology's Robert E. Rhoades Pre-Dissertation Award, UGA's Communication of Research and Scholarship, UGA Arts Collaborative Mini Grant, UGA Willson Center for Arts & Humanities's Graduate Research Award, UGA Centre for Integrative Conservation and Research's Mini-Grants, and others.

 

Amit is an environmental anthropologist and conservation social scientist at the University of Georgia. He is also the founder of the Wolf Conservation Initiative, which advances research and conservation of wolves and grassland ecosystems across South Asia. Scholars, practitioners, and students, particularly those from marginalized backgrounds or working in the Global South, are welcome to reach out with questions about fieldwork, graduate training, or engaged conservation research.

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