His work seeks to understand the constitution of the territory of the state as a means of legitimating political practice. His dissertation focuses on the incorporation of Japan’s northern territories into the space of the state from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. He is also a proponent of border studies, an interdisciplinary endeavour seeking to understand the multifaceted ways in which territory is envisaged and mobilized under globalization, and conducts research on contemporary border issues in Japan, Georgia and India’s Northeast.