His research interests include economic and historical anthropology, the anthropology of religion, materiality, and Christianity. His most recent work has focused on developing an ethnographically informed theory of hope that also expands understanding of the place of hope in knowledge formation; it includes research collaboration with the University of Tokyo’s Institute of Social Science. His publications include Arbitraging Japan: Traders as Critics of Capitalism (2013) and The Method of Hope: Anthropology, Philosophy, and Fijian Knowledge (2004), as well as numerous journal articles in both English and Japanese. He earned his Ph.D. at Australian National University.