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Pooja Nayak is a postdoctoral lecturer and researcher in the Chair of Environmental Humanities at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society since October 2023. She is a sociocultural anthropologist of environments and modern South Asia. Her research focuses on the dynamics of post-extraction landscapes in India, with particular attention to livelihood, biodiversity, state capitalism, and multispecies relations.
Her project, “After Extraction: Work, Value, and the Politics of Everyday Security,” examines how individuals and communities stake claims to industrial livelihoods and diverse ecologies in the biodiverse Western Ghats mountain ranges and their implications for the economy and social mobility. Her research has received grants from the Social Science Research Council, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, and the University of Pennsylvania.
Pooja holds a dual PhD in Anthropology and South Asia Studies from the University of Pennsylvania, USA, and an MA in Philosophy from Manipal University, India. At the RCC, she's taught courses on human and more-than-human ecologies, environmental justice, and representation skills in the M.A. program in Environment and Society.
Selected Publications:
- “Relations and Difference: Teaching the Human and More-than-Human Ecologies in Germany”. Lagoonscapes: The Venice Journal of Environmental Humanities. (December 2025). http://doi.org/10.30687/LGSP/2785-2709/2025/02/006
- “Inefficiency and the Rhythms of Industrial Time.” Exertions, Society for the Anthropology of Work. (July 2023). https://anthrowork.org/collections/book-forum-porkopolis/inefficiency-and-the-rhythms-of-industrial-time/
- “On Livability in the Sri Lankan Tea Plantation.” Exertions, Society for the Anthropology of Work. (September 2021). https://anthrowork.org/collections/book-forum-tea-and-solidarity/on-livability-in-the-sri-lankan-tea-plantation/