Personal profile

Biography

Associate Professor Muhammad Kavesh is an anthropologist and the Director of the South Asia Research Institute (SARI). He is currently an Australian Research Council’s DECRA fellow at the School of Culture, History, and Language, working on a project examining animals' trade in traditional medicine.

Kavesh is 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). His next book project “The Ethics of Multispecies Hospitality in South Asia” brings novel insights from philosophy, multispecies anthropology, and South Asian studies to ask what it means to host a more-than-human Other (or intruder) at home.

Kavesh has co-edited two special journal issues, both are available as open access. The first co-edited special journal issue, “Anthropology of Mutualism (2023, Anthropology Today) brings a multispecies anthropological approach into dialogue with a local understanding of mutualism, while the second, “Sense Making in a More-than-Human World” (2021, The Australian Journal of Anthropology) knots a multi-sensory perspective with a multi-species approach to explore how both human and more-than-human lives are intertwined, and how their close examination can guide anthropologists in their ability to capture the subtleties of more-than-human engagement, connection, and relatedness.

Kavesh’s approach is influenced by his long-standing interest in multispecies anthropology, philosophy, decolonization, and South Asian vernacular poetry. His article, “Face-to-face with the (animal) Other” (2023, American Ethnologist > available open access) builds on Emmanuel Levinas’s concept of infinity and asks how conceiving the Other beyond a political or religious other, or even beyond a human subject, create a possibility of decolonization. Another article published in the Journal of Asian Studies titled “Contested Flights” explores geo-political stability, national security, and everyday enthusiasm through the flight of pigeons. His recent paper in American Anthropologist titled “Welcoming the Foreigner: Notes on the Possibility of Multispecies Hospitality” (available open access) examines the concept of hospitality beyond humans.

From mid-2023, Kavesh is engaging with an Australian Research Council’s multi-year project to explore animal trade and the use of animals in traditional medicine (see his article “Donkey Trade: Challenges to sustaining mutualism in Rural Pakistan” available open access).

Kavesh’s publications develop on various sources of funding, including:

  • Australian Research Council 
  • Australian Centre for International Agriculture Research
  • Faculty of Arts and Science Fellowship, University of Toronto
  • Australian Anthropological Society’s Postdoctoral Fellowship
  • Australian Government’s Endeavour Award

Kavesh’s teaching focuses on South Asia, technology, sustainability, environmental governance, and ethnographic methods. He also has professional work experience, working with multiple humanitarian organizations in Islamabad.

 

Selected Publications

2024           Muhammad Kavesh & Natasha Fijn (eds). Nurturing Alternative Futures: Living with Diversity in a More-than-Human World. Routledge, London and New York.

2024           Muhammad Kavesh, Welcoming the Foreigner: Notes on the possibility of Multispecies Hospitality. American Anthropologist, forthcoming, Vol 126, No. 1, pp. 109-119.

2024           Muhammad Kavesh, Mutualistic Self Alteration: Human-Pigeon Assemblages in Rural Pakistan, in Jean Paul Baldacchino & Christopher Houston eds. “Self-Alteration: How people change themselves across cultures”, Rutgers University Press: New Brunswick, pp. 163-177.

2023           Muhammad Kavesh, Face-to-face with the (Animal) Other: An Invitation to Decolonize the Anthropology of Pakistan. American Ethnologist, 50:3, 409–418. DOI:10.1111/amet.13188.

2023           Muhammad Kavesh, Contested Flights: The Perplexity of Intruding “Spy Pigeons” at the India-Pakistan Border, Journal of Asian Studies, 82:2, 26–35. DOI: 10.1215/00219118-10290610.

2023           Muhammad Kavesh, Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt and Rajendra Adhikari, Women and plant entanglements: pulses commercialization and care relations in Punjab, Pakistan Oxford Development Studies, 51:2, 84-96. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13600818.2023.2177265.

2023           Muhammad Kavesh, Donkey Trade: Challenges to Sustaining Mutualism in Rural Pakistan. Anthropology Today, 39:1, 19–22. [available as open access]

2023           Muhammad Kavesh [with Natasha Fijn and Catie Gressier], Anthropology of Mutualism. Anthropology Today, 39:1, 1–2. [available as open access]

2023           Muhammad Kavesh Demystifying the Promise of Sustainability through the China-Pakistan Donkey Trade, in Muhammad A. Kavesh and Natasha Fijn eds, “Nurturing Alternative Futures: Living with Diversity in a More-than-Human World,” Routledge: New York and London.

2023           Muhammad Kavesh and Natasha Fijn, Introduction: Storying Cultural and Biological Diversity, in Muhammad A Kavesh and Natasha Fijn eds, “Living with Diversity in a More-than-Human World,” Routledge: New York and London.

2023           Muhammad Kavesh [with Natasha Fijn], Towards a Multisensorial Engagement with Animals, in Phillip Vannini ed. “Routledge Companion of Sensory Ethnography,” Routledge: New York and London

2021           Muhammad Kavesh, Animal Enthusiasms: Life beyond Cage and Leash in Pakistan. Routledge, London and New York.

2021           Muhammad Kavesh, Sensuous Entanglements: A Critique of cockfighting conceived as a ‘cultural text’. Senses and Society, 16:2, 151–163.

2021           Muhammad Kavesh, The Flight of the Self: Exploring More-than-human Companionship in Rural Pakistan. The Australian Journal of Anthropology, 32, 42–57.

2021           Muhammad Kavesh [with Natasha Fijn], A Sensory Approach for Multispecies Anthropology. The Australian Journal of Anthropology, 32, 6–22.

2019           Muhammad Kavesh [with Kirin Narayan], Priceless Enthusiasms: The Pursuit of Shauq in South Asia. South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 42:1, 711–725.

2019           Muhammad Kavesh Dog fighting: Performing Masculinity in Rural South Punjab, Pakistan. Society & Animals, Journal of Human-Animal Studies, 27:2, 1–19

2018           Muhammad Kavesh From Passion of Kings to Pastimes of Commons: Pigeon flying, cockfighting, and dogfighting in South Asia. Pakistan Journal of Historical Studies, Indiana University Press, 3:1, 61–83.

Education/Academic qualification

Anthropology, PhD, Beyond Cage and Leash: Human-animal relationships in rural Pakistan, The Australian National University

External Scholarly Memberships and Affiliations

Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Toronto

1 May 20211 May 2023

Research student supervision

  • Registered to supervise

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