Scott Thomas Erich is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Washington College. Previously, he was the Howell Postdoctoral Research Associate in Arabian Peninsula and Gulf Studies in the Corcoran Department of History at the University of Virginia. Scott is a historical anthropologist and environmental historian who received his PhD from the Graduate Center, CUNY in 2023. His dissertation, about extraction, property and rights at sea off the coast of the Arabian Peninsula was awarded the 2024 Gwen Okhruhlik Dissertation Award. His current book project, Taming the Sea: Southeastern Arabia’s Extractive Seascape c. 1820-present, is an ethnographic and legal history of how fishermen, local rulers, colonial officials, states, and private companies claim rights to oceanic “territory” and extract marine natural resources – including pearls, fish, sponges, and oil – from the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman.

Scott is a recipient of the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Award and the Wenner-Gren Foundation Dissertation Fieldwork Grant. Previously, he was a Visiting Scholar at the American University of Sharjah, U.A.E., and a Fellow with the Institute of Current World Affairs in Muscat, Oman. He has worked at the University of Chicago, the Middle East Institute, and the Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center, and taught as an adjunct lecturer in the Department of Sociology & Anthropology at Baruch College from 2017-2023. 

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