Manisha Anantharaman is a multi-disciplinary scholar working at the intersection of economic and cultural sociology, political ecology, and environmental governance to study how ecological transitions are shaped by inequality, identity, and institutions. She studies how economic and political ideologies, socio-cultural identities, and power relations impact how "environmentalism" and "sustainability" are conceptualized and organized at multiple scales, from the household to the transnational milieu. Her work focuses on the recursive relations through which ecological policies both reflect and influence intersectional inequalities of race, class, caste, and gender. Using ethnographic methods. She examines the dynamics of everyday sustainability practices and political mobilizations in relation to one another, as exemplified in her recent book Recycling Class (2024, MIT Press).