Viveiros de Castro takes as start point the Amerindian perspectivism and animism for proposing a decolonization of knowledge, that’s why more than an object of study, he consider its philosophical status, that could challenge our Western knowledge structures. The point of departure is the consideration that all beings, human or no-human are persons, as all of them have a soul, and are constituted by relationships. What these persons see is the Amerindian philosophical question, that’s why to know is not to objectify, but to embody the perspective of the studied, this means subjectify. Amerindian cosmologies can also bring other image and representation regimes to our epistemology.
For De Castro, the base of anthropology (and is own material of work) is the misunderstanding (equivoco). This is “the constitutive dimension of the translation project of our discipline”, it is not a mistake or a falseness. The misunderstanding (equivoco) is not what blocks the relationship but the one that founded and impulses it, that’s why it is important to embody it.(M.I.)

(English language edition: Minneapolis, MN: Univocal, 2014)