He studies the articulation between kinship and politics in indigenous America, focusing on the Amazon. His fieldwork among the Kanamari of the Javari Valley has as its central theme the asymmetrical relationships that cross disparate ties such as those converging parents and children, chiefs and followers, donas and xerimbabos, shamans and familiar spirits, the Brazilian State and the Kanamari, which he has called a "relationship of mastery," and which has been researching in other parts of the Americas and beyond. In addition to this research, he has been conducting studies on the intellectual history of Amazonian anthropology.