Bio
April 9, 2016Haiti has been the subject of considerable scholarly work, and the 2010 earthquake and subsequent cholera outbreak brought the country into renewed international attention. Anthropologist Mark Schuller has been researching Haitian NGOs and the effects of foreign aid for 20 years. This website is a hub for his past and ongoing work, and soon a platform for other thoughtful, committed anthropologists working to change the world.
Mark was born in Park Ridge, Illinois and was raised in another first ring suburb of Chicago, Des Plaines. He went to the public liberal arts University of Minnesota, Morris, where a “Halloween prank” shocked him and many others into activism. Following this he was a community organizer in Minnesota’s Twin Cities, including two and a half years at the St. Paul Tenants Union. When he and everyone else were laid off, Mark went to graduate school.
Today, Mark is Professor of Anthropology and Nonprofit and NGO Studies at Northern Illinois University and affiliate at the Faculté d’Ethnologie, l’Université d’État d’Haïti. Supported by the National Science Foundation Senior and CAREER Grant, Bellagio Center, and others, Schuller’s research on NGOs, globalization, disasters, and gender in Haiti has been published in over forty book chapters and peer-reviewed articles as well as public media, including a column in Huffington Post. He is the author or co-editor of eight books, including Humanity’s Last Stand: Confronting Global Catastrophe (2021, Rutgers). He is co-director / co-producer of documentary Poto Mitan: Haitian Women, Pillars of the Global Economy (2009). Schuller is co-editor of Berghahn Books’ Catastrophes in Context: a Series in Engaged Social Science on Disasters and University of Alabama Press’ NGOgraphies: a Series of Ethnographic Reflections of NGOs. Recipient of the Margaret Mead Award, and the Anthropology in Media Award, he is active in several solidarity efforts.