His research and writings fall under three general categories: cinema, media, and public culture; nature, ecology, and environment; and theory, method, and writing. He has published widely in these areas and is currently working on an ethnography about affect and cinema, based on fieldwork over the last five years in the Tamil film industry. He is author of Crooked Stalks: Cultivating Virtue in South India, co-editor of Ethical Life in South Asia (IUP, 2011) and Race, Nature, and the Politics of Difference, and a contributor to Everyday Life in South Asia (IUP, 2010).