Professor Doughty's first book project, Remediation in Rwanda:Grassroots Legal Forums (University of Pennsylvania Press, Ethnography of Political Violence Series, 2016), was driven by an interest in understanding how the contemporary global preoccupation with law and human rights as universalizing frameworks for post-conflict reconciliation shape people’s own efforts to rebuild their lives in the wake of violence. The book examines the intersection of law, rights, and collective belonging in post-genocide Rwanda. It is based on 18 months of ethnographic research with grassroots legal forums in Rwanda, including genocide courts (gacaca courts) in which suspects from the 1994 genocide were tried among their neighbors before locally elected judges, as well as mediation committees for ordinary disputes (comite y'abunzi) and a legal aid clinic. Prof Doughty has also researched and/or written on memorialization and education in Rwanda, and on the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

Professor Doughty’s current research project examines the intersection of energy politics and post-genocide reconstruction in Rwanda through a focus on methane extraction in Lake Kivu. This research is funded by grants from the Wenner Gren foundation and National Science Foundation.