The Anthropology of Resources studies resource extraction's cultural, social, economic, and environmental aspects. Most of my research focused on small-scale gold mining in the Amazon region, especially in Brazil and the Guianas. I have also done fieldwork in Bolivia and collaborated with researchers in Colombia and Peru. In Suriname and French Guiana, I work with the Brazilian migrant miners and the Aluku and Ndyuka maroon populations in the gold fields. Most of my work in Brazil has been in Pará, notably in the Tapajós region. As part of the collaborative Gold Matters project, I have also done a bit of fieldwork in Ghana with my Leiden University colleague Sabine Luning. With my colleague Eva van Roekel I did a project on cross-border resource extraction related social and economic consequences of the Venezuelan crisis in Roraima and Bolívar.
I have several research affiliations in Brazil. Since 2013, I collaborate with the Research group Etnografias Contemporâneas: Memória, Identidades e Urbanidades (with Madiana Rodrigues) of the Universidade Federal de Roraima. Since 2018, I am visiting researcher at the Center for Environmental Studies and Research (NEPAM) and visiting professor and co-supervisor in the PhD Program Environment and Society in the same institution at Unicamp (University of Campinas). I am member of the editorial board of ERLACS, European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies. Since 2023 I serve as Head of Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, in the Faculty of Social Sciences.
