Her research examines the complex intersections of caregiving and power in later life. Drawing on approaches from medical anthropology, social work and feminist anthropology, Buch’s work examines the ways that emerging forms of care and everyday care practices shape both intimate and political social relations. She is particularly interested in the ways that care practices naturalize, reproduce or transform social inequalities. Her research is focused in the United States, where discourses of productivity and independence crucially shape the social roles and forms of care available to older and disabled adults.