Jul 2025
Fireside Chat with Dr. Samira Agnihotri on Reimagining Coexistence
Samira Agnihotri leads the Coexistence Fellowship at the University of Trans-Disciplinary Health Sciences and Technology (TDU). Samira’s work brings together ecology, acoustics, and culture through what she calls “listening ecology”. This is an approach that encourages people to tune into the voices of both human and non-human life. With an MSc from the National Centre for Biological Sciences and a PhD from the Indian Institute of Science, her interdisciplinary work spans birdsong, bioacoustics, anthropology, and linguistics. Since 2004, she has been deeply rooted in the Biligirirangana Hills of southern Karnataka, working in close collaboration with the Soliga community.
1. In your view, what does coexistence truly mean?
Coexistence is not a utopian idea. It’s a negotiated, lived practice shaped by mutual understanding and adaptation. I didn’t start out working on coexistence; I was trained as an ecologist. My understanding of coexistence emerged through long-term engagement with the Soliga community in the Biligirirangana Hills. I came to see that coexistence isn’t just about sharing space; it’s about constant negotiation, sometimes discomfort, and mutual adaptation. What Dr C Madegowda, a Soliga leader calls, “an internal understanding.”
In the documentary, A Flaming Forest, he says, “Tigers don’t care about core or buffer zones. Neither do we.” These lines have stayed with me. It speaks to a knowledge system that’s lived, not legislated. Today, frameworks like One Health or Planetary Health echo similar ideas but often focus narrowly on disease. For me, coexistence is a broader ethic. It’s the understanding that we’re all entangled in one another’s wellbeing, and we survive only when we stop trying to dominate the narrative.
2. How can we shift from a narrative of conflict to one of kinship?
I really believe the shift begins with empathy. And empathy begins with exposure. For many urban communities, interactions with other species are minimal or framed through fear and control. But we forget that coexistence used to be embedded in our daily lives. Take the rice-flour rangolis or kollams people placed outside their homes. They were made with the intention to feed ants and birds fed. That was coexistence at the doorstep. Today we use powdered stone. It’s inedible. That small shift tells a larger story of how market-driven ideologies have distanced us from shared life. And when species get labelled as “pests,”
This departure from empathy has shaped how entire generations perceive different species. Rebuilding kinship requires early, hands-on experiences and a rethinking of how we teach nature. Not as something ‘out there’ but something we’re a part of. We need pedagogies that make room for wonder and relational thinking, rather than fear and extraction.
3. What role can collaborative platforms play in shaping coexistence?
In my experience, collaborations, especially interdisciplinary ones, are where real change begins. They bring together people who wouldn’t ordinarily meet, and in that encounter lies the potential for narrative shift. That’s the thinking behind our Coexistence Fellowship: it pairs individuals with lived experience, from local communities, with those who have had a more conventional, mainstream education. They come from different worlds, perhaps even different ideologies, but through the fellowship, we hope that they learn to listen, adapt, and co-create.
Another example that gives me hope is the Students’ Conference on Conservation Science (SCCS) in Bangalore. It’s now in its 16th year. What’s kept it alive is that it’s volunteer-led, ego-free, and deeply values interdisciplinarity. There’s science, yes, but also art, anthropology, and lived narratives. That kind of inclusive space is rare and so needed. And platforms like ClimateRISE are starting to nurture similar cross-pollination. I really believe this is how we begin to imagine new futures.
4. What are some blind spots in current conservation and policy spaces?
One of the biggest blind spots, I think, is that we haven’t agreed on what coexistence even means. For some, it’s about managing populations. For others, it’s about sacred relationships. And this definitional fuzziness often creates tension. But the deeper issue here is- how do we move from “I” to “we”?
Even within conservation spaces, we see silos, hierarchies, and competition. We talk about coexistence with wildlife, but we struggle to find common ground with each other. That’s one of the reasons for creating the Coexistence Fellowship, which was conceptualised by the Coexistence Consortium, to foster shared learning and reflection across differences.
Another major blind spot is funding. Grounded, community-based work is slow, iterative, and non-linear. But most donors still seek quick wins and measurable outputs. Our philosophy is different. We value ripple effects, not just numbers. We need more funders who understand that system-level change takes time, trust, and willingness to walk alongside communities.
5. How do you see the role of media in shaping narratives on human-wildlife interaction?
Media has immense power in shaping how people feel about wildlife. Even if folks don’t read physical newspapers, they’re constantly consuming stories online. Often, wildlife is portrayed as the villain in human-wildlife interactions and people as helpless victims. But that’s just one aspect of the picture.
At a recent convening we held with ClimateRISE, we reviewed a mainstream news article and discussed how even the language used - words like “menace” or “attack”, shape public opinion. I’ve found that regional journalists, especially in places where interactions are frequent, are more curious to understand nuances and complexities because they live near it. There’s so much potential here- to build a network of responsive experts and develop region and species-specific guidance for ethical and holistic reporting. That work is already underway. We just need to keep at it.
6. What can we learn from indigenous communities like the Soliga?
I’ve learned more from them than any textbook could teach me. Often, while walking through BR Hills, I would observe Soliga people come across an elephant on a narrow path. They would calmly speak to the elephant, “Let us go our way, you go yours” And after a while, the elephant would move away. These moments taught me what an “internal understanding” truly is. It’s not just about knowledge, it’s about respect, rhythm, and shared memory.
There’s also a beautiful Soliga proverb I often think about, that captures the essence of coexistence – Dolli hannina kaaladalli aane kanakangille, gungumaari hittiga manasa kanakangille, hullu muriya gaalika huli kanakangille“In the time of the Dolli fruit, don’t disturb the elephant. In the time of the ragi harvest, don’t disturb the human. In the time of the wind that bends the grass blade, don’t disturb the tiger.” It’s a worldview that acknowledges both human and animal needs without hierarchy.
I often think about how reports of human-wildlife interactions contain maps of conflict across the country. But where are the maps of coexistence? What if we mapped these stories instead?
7. How can we build future-ready frameworks for coexistence?
To build anything future-ready, we need to slow down and go deep. Most conservation frameworks still operate in a top-down, output-driven way. But real coexistence doesn’t come from checklists. It comes from relationships. I was never taught stakeholder engagement in my formal education. Back then, the “stakeholder” was mostly the forest department, because we needed permission to do fieldwork. But in the real world, every community member, every human and non-human life form, is a stakeholder.
So, for me, a future-ready framework is one that centers on empathy, builds local leadership, and embraces iteration. It’s not flashy, but it lasts.
8. What gives you hope?
What gives me hope is the people. Especially the ones willing to do slow, quiet work. The communities who continue to live alongside elephants and leopards, not because it’s easy, but because it’s part of their worldview. I often get asked- aren’t you being too romantic about coexistence? Don’t people and animals die in these interactions? Yes, they do. But our question is: despite those losses, how are people still choosing to live with wildlife?
In many parts of the world, animals that cause harm are shot on sight. But here, there’s a relational ethic that persists and that’s worth understanding. I also find hope in intersectoral collaborations, in narrative shifts, and in younger generations who are more open to complexity. The work is hard. The change is slow. But I truly believe something magical happens when people from different worlds come together with respect, curiosity, and shared purpose.