About the Author. Professor Michael M. Cernea joined the World Bank in 1974 as its first in-house sociologist and worked as the Bank's Senior Adviser for Sociology and Social Policy until 1997. He has carried out social research, policy work, and development project work in many countries throughout Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Latin America.

Michael Cernea has a Ph.D. in sociology and social philosophy, has taught and lectured in universities in Europe and the United States, has been a visiting scholar at Harvard and other universities, and was appointed Honorary Professor for Resettlement and Social Studies at Hohai University in Nanjing, China.

In 1991 he was elected to the Academy of Sciences, Romania. He is the recipient of the Solon T. Kimball Award for Public Policy and Applied Anthropology, granted by the American Anthropological Association, and of the Bronislow Malinowski Prize given by the Society for Applied Anthropology 'in recognition of scholarly efforts to understand and serve the needs of the world through social science'.

He has written and edited numerous books and studies on development, social change, population resettlement, social forestry, grassroots organizations, and participation including Putting People First: Sociological Variables in Development (1985, 1991), Anthropological Approaches to Resettlement: Policy, Practice, Theory (edited with Scott Guggenheim, 1993), Social Organization and Development Anthropology (1996), Social Assessment for Better Development (edited with Ayse Kudat, 1997) Resettlement and Development (vol. I and II, published in China, 1996-1998) and The Economics of Involuntary Resettlement: Questions and Challenges (1999).

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