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Dr Dena Freeman

Dr Dena Freeman

Senior visiting fellow

Department of Anthropology

Email
d.g.freeman@lse.ac.uk
orcid
0000-0003-2683-8859
Languages
Amharic, English
Key Expertise
Global anthropology; Planetary politics; Left internationalism

About me

Dena Freeman is an interdisciplinary scholar drawing on social anthropology, critical political-economy and global history to explore past and present questions of left internationalism, development, planetary politics and world order. Her work centres on global critical theory and the dynamics of progressive social change. Key questions include: How could world politics be organised in a more just and democratic way? How have different people, from the global North and South, envisioned a fairer world order and struggled to make it a reality? How could an inclusive, democratic planetary politics be constructed? 

Her current research projects look at the Global Left, the History of the Mid-Twentieth Century World Government Movement in the Global South, and Counter-Hegemonic Globalist Ideas in Contemporary Social Movements. Earlier research has looked at international development, the transformation of subjectivities and social systems in Africa, and the dynamics of cultural transformation in rural Ethiopia. 

She holds a permanent position as Professor of Global Studies at Shanghai University, China, and has previously taught at Cambridge University and University College London (UCL) and held Visiting Scholar positions at the University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’, the University of Basel, and Addis Abeba University, Ethiopia.

 

Personal website: www.denafreeman.com

Expertise Details

Global anthropology; World order; Planetary politics; Global democracy; Left internationalism; Development; Ethiopia

Selected publications

Podcasts

Dynamics of Democracy and Inequality in the Context of Globalisation. Lecture given at the International Inequalities Institute Seminar, LSE, March 2017. Listen here.

North-South Struggles over Financing for Development: State, Society and Market in the Global Age. Public Lecture given at the Global South Studies Centre, University of Cologne, Germany. July 2017. Listen here.  

Books

2026. The Global Left in a Multipolar World: Towards a Planetary Politics of Justice and Survival. London: Routledge. (in press) 

2022. Global Democracy: The Key to Global Justice. Berlin: Democracy without Borders. (co-authored with Oded Gilad)

2020. Can Globalization Succeed? London: Thames and Hudson. 

2019. Tearfund and the Quest for Faith-Based Development. London: Routledge.

2012. Pentecostalism and Development: Churches, NGOs and Social Change in Africa. London: Palgrave Macmillan.  Read a review here.

2003. Peripheral People: The Excluded Minorities of Ethiopia. London: Hurst. (Edited with Alula Pankhurst). Read the Conclusion here.

2002. Initiating Change in Highland Ethiopia: Causes and Consequences of Cultural Transformation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Read the Introduction here. 

Selected Articles and Chapters

2025. The Counter-Hegemonic Internationalism of Josué de Castro: A Radical Brazilian in the Mid-Twentieth Century World Government Movement. History. Online publication first.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1468-229X.70054 

2025. The Globalization Project of the Group of 77 (G77). In Globalization Projects of Regional Organizations, edited by Ulf Engel, Jens Herpolsheimer and Frank Mattheis. Berlin: Brill. pp. 261-278.

https://www.vr-elibrary.de/doi/10.13109/9783666340352.261 

2024. Sovereignty, Human Rights and the Regulation of Transnational Corporations: A Critical Spatial Analysis of Civil Society Proposals for a Binding Treaty. Globalizations, 21,8: 1402-1420.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14747731.2024.2353993

2018. North-South Struggles on Financing for Development: State, Society and Market in the Global Age. Global Policy, 9, 3: 377-386. http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/88036/ 

2018. De-Democratisation and Rising Inequality: The Underlying Cause of a Worrying Trend. Global Society, 32, 2: 344-364. http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/88038/

2018. From ‘Christians doing Development’ to ‘Doing Christian Development’:  The Changing Role of Religion in the International Work of Tearfund. Development in Practice, 28, 2: 280-291. http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/88039/ 

2017 The Global South at the UN: Using International Politics to Re-Vision the Global. The Global South, 11, 2: 71-91. http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/88037/

2017. Affordances of Rupture and their Enactment: A Framework for Understanding Christian Change. Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society, 42, 4: 3-24. http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/88040/

2015. Techniques of Happiness: Moving Toward and Away from the Good Life in Rural Ethiopia. HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, 5, 3: 157-176.

2015. Pentecostalism and Economic Development in Sub-Saharan Africa. In The Routledge Handbook of Religions and Global Development, edited by Emma Tomalin. London: Routledge.

2013. Pentecostalism in a Rural Context: Dynamics of Religion and Development in Southwest Ethiopia. PentecoStudies 12,2: 231-249.

2013. Value Chains for Development: An Ethnography of Pro-Poor Market Interventions in Ethiopia. Anthropology of This Century. Issue 6. 

2012. The Pentecostal Ethic and the Spirit of Development. In Pentecostalism and Development: Churches, NGOs and Social Change in Africa, edited by Dena Freeman. London: Palgrave Macmillan.  

2012. Development and the Rural Entrepreneur: Pentecostals, NGOs and the Market in the Gamo Highlands, Ethiopia. In Pentecostalism and Development: Churches, NGOs and Social Change in Africa, edited by Dena Freeman. London: Palgrave Macmillan. 

2009. Development and (Un)happiness: A Case Study from Rural Ethiopia. In Gross National Happiness: Practice and Measurement, edited by K. Ura & D. Penjore. Centre for Bhutan Studies, Thimpu.

2006. Who are the D’ache? And Who are the Gamo?: Confusions of Ethnicity in Ethiopia’s Southern Highlands. In Proceedings of the 15th International Conference of Ethiopian Studies, edited by Siebert Uhling. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. 

2003. Homeworkers in Global Supply Chains. Greener Management International, 43:1-12.

2002. From Warrior to Wife: Cultural Transformation in the Gamo Highlands of Ethiopia. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 8:34-44.  

2000. Cultural Variation in Southern Ethiopia: An Introduction. Northeast African Studies, 7,3 (N.S):15-20.

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