Dr. Scott Freeman

Dr. Scott Freeman is an anthropologist whose work is at the intersection of the anthropology of the environment, critical development studies, and the anthropology of labor in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. He conducts ethnographic research with agriculturalists and NGO workers in both countries. He is currently concerned with the bureaucracies of international aid projects, and how bureaucratic and financial procedures in international aid undermine conservation interventions. In the Dominican Republic, he has conducted research on the relationship between NGOs and coffee cooperatives.

In Haiti, his research has covered the vetiver essential oil industry and soil conservation. On both sides of the island, Dr. Freeman is interested in understanding reciprocal agricultural labor practices as forms of counter plantation practice. His current work establishes a line of inquiry around aid projects and the regimes of labor that support them. This research examines the aid industry as a market for projects and theorizes the ways in which recipients of aid contribute valuable and uncompensated labor to the production successful projects.