Eduardo Viveiros de Castro

Eduardo Viveiros de Castro
Name	Eduardo Viveiros de Castro
Birth date	1951
Birth place	Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Occupation	Anthropologist, professor, author
Alma mater	Federal University of Rio de Janeiro; University of Paris X: Nanterre; University of Campinas
Notable works	A Inconstância da Alma, Métaphysiques cannibales, Cosmological Perspectivism

Eduardo Viveiros de Castro is a Brazilian anthropologist known for developing the concept of Amerindian perspectivism and for influential interventions in anthropology, philosophy, and Indigenous studies. His work links ethnography from the Amazon with debates in Actor–Network Theory, Gilles Deleuze, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Immanuel Kant, René Descartes, and Claude Lévi-Strauss, shaping discussions across anthropology, philosophy, Latin American studies, and Indigenous rights movements. Viveiros de Castro has held positions at major institutions and influenced scholars in Donna Haraway, Tim Ingold, Marisol de la Cadena, Philippe Descola, and Isabelle Stengers networks.

Early life and education

Born in Rio de Janeiro, he trained initially at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and pursued postgraduate studies at the University of Paris X: Nanterre and the University of Campinas. His early mentors and interlocutors included figures from Structural anthropology circles influenced by Claude Lévi-Strauss and interlocutors associated with French anthropology such as Maurice Godelier and Alain Testart. During formative years he engaged with debates prompted by authors like Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, Jacques Derrida, and Gaston Bachelard, situating Amazonian ethnography within broader currents from Continental philosophy and Post-structuralism.

Academic career and positions

He has served in professorial and research roles at the National Museum of Brazil, the Museu Nacional research programs, and faculty appointments at the State University of Campinas and the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul. Viveiros de Castro has been affiliated with international centers including the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, the International Institute for Social History, and visiting chairs at the University of Oxford, the University of Chicago, the New School for Social Research, and the University of Cambridge. He has contributed to journals and editorial boards connected to Current Anthropology, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, and publishing houses such as Cambridge University Press, Princeton University Press, and Verso Books.

Major works and theoretical contributions

His major texts—A Inconstância da Alma, Métaphysiques cannibales, and numerous essays collected in English and Portuguese—advance the theoretical program known as Amerindian perspectivism, intersecting with debates in Ontology, Relational ontology, and Multinaturalism. Drawing on comparative work with authors like Marshall Sahlins, Eduardo Kohn, and Clifford Geertz, he reframes Amazonian cosmologies in terms of bodily perspectival shifts and ontological inversion. His essays engage the work of Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, Bruno Latour, and Donna Haraway, proposing a critique of modernity reminiscent of interventions by Walter Benjamin and Immanuel Wallerstein. He develops methods for “ontological anthropology” that converse with Speculative realism thinkers and with debates on Indigenous cosmopolitics present in the work of Philippe Descola and Marisol de la Cadena.

Fieldwork and ethnographic research

Viveiros de Castro’s fieldwork among Araweté, Guajá, Xikrin, and other Tupí-Guaraní and Arawakan groups in the Brazilian Amazon produced detailed accounts of shamanism, kinship, and personhood. His ethnographic practice draws on earlier Amazonian researchers such as Claude Lévi-Strauss, Alfred Métraux, Gregory Bateson, Anthony Seeger, and Peter Gray. He documents classificatory and perspectival practices that he relates to broader regional histories involving Portuguese colonization, Jesuit missions, Rubber Boom, and contemporary Indigenous movements like those associated with the National Indian Foundation and Coordenação das Organizações Indígenas da Amazônia Brasileira.

Reception and influence

Scholars across disciplines—Tim Ingold, Marisol de la Cadena, Eduardo Kohn, Bruno Latour, Philippe Descola, Isabelle Stengers, and Anna Tsing—have debated and built on his perspectivism, producing critical dialogues in venues including Current Anthropology, American Anthropologist, and History of Anthropology Review. Critics connect his work to discussions by Jacques Derrida and Giorgio Agamben while supporters link it to activism among Indigenous Peoples and policy debates involving the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. His influence extends into creative collaborations with artists and curators associated with institutions like the Museum of Modern Art, the British Museum, and the Smithsonian Institution.

Awards and honors

Viveiros de Castro has received national and international recognition including awards and fellowships from bodies such as the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), the Brazilian Academy of Sciences, the British Academy (visiting fellowships), and grants from the Humboldt Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation for collaborative research projects. He has been the recipient of honorary positions in research institutes including the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales and visiting professorships at the University of California, Berkeley and the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences.

Category:Brazilian anthropologists Category:People from Rio de Janeiro