Michael (Mihail) M. Cernea (born 14 October 1931) is a sociologist and anthropologist born in Romania who reestablished himself in the United States in 1974, where he has since lived. He is widely recognized for introducing sociological and anthropological approaches into the World Bank. He worked as the World Bank's Senior Adviser for Sociology and Social Policy until 1997. He has published on a wide range of the effects of development, including social change, social forestry, participation, grassroots organizations, and population resettlement. He is an author of the term "development-induced displacement and resettlement".
Judith Freidenberg reports Cernea as arguing that "Development Anthropology is a Contact Sport". [1]
Michael Cernea was born in Iași. After graduating from the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Bucharest in 1954, he started working as assistant researcher in the Institute of Philosophy of the Romanian Academy in 1958, became principal researcher, defended his PhD in 1962 and became the Chief of the Institute’s social research section soon thereafter. During the 1960s, he helped break the official publication on empirical anthropological research in Romania at that time by shifting the research section h led at the institute of Philosophy from general social philosophy to empirical sociological field investigations in industrial and rural sociology. He was invited as visiting researcher at the Centre D’Etudes Sociologiques in Paris (1967) and as Fellow in residence at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS), Stanford, USA in 1970–1971. The European Society for Rural Sociology elected him as Vice-President (1973–1977). The Romanian Academy awarded Cernea the Vasile Conta Prize, and other prizes and distinctions for his research publications.[ citation needed ]
In mid 1974, Cernea emigrated to the United States, where he has since lived, taught and practiced for the longest part of his professional sociological and anthropological career. In August 1974, the World Bank in Washington, D.C. selected him as its first in-house sociologist, then as its Senior Sociologist, and Senior Adviser for Social Policy and Sociology from 1982 to 1997. Between 1998 and 2003 he was appointed as member of the CGIAR Science Council (the group of 16 International Agricultural Research Centers). Professor Cernea has also served as Senior Social Adviser to international organizations such as the UN, OECD, UNDP, ADB, CGIAR, FAO, BP, Chevron, etc. on social policy, development, cultural and poverty issues. He was elected as officer in various capacities for international and national professional social science organizations, including as Vice-President of The Gusti Foundation (Romania) after 1990. He has worked also for non-profit organizations, served as currently Director in the Board of PACT (USA), and was a member of the Board of Trustees of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina (Egypt)(2000-2008).[ citation needed ]
At the World Bank, Cernea gradually recruited, established and led a large community of development sociologists and anthropologists, placing these social disciplines on the World Bank’s intellectual map and broadening its skill mix. Cernea decisively helped to gain a place for development-oriented social research in the Bank and professional, applied sociological work in Bank’s operations. He authored, or contributed to defining and writing, some of the Bank's main social policies, particularly its policies on involuntary population resettlement, on indigenous populations, protection of “chance finds” cultural artifacts, cooperation with NGOs, the World Bank strategy for cultural heritage preservation and management, water and irrigation, reforestation, agricultural extension, and others.[ citation needed ]
In the field, Cernea has carried out social research on policy and operational development issues in hydropower, agriculture, irrigation, forestry, mining, and other sectors, as well as direct project design and evaluation work in many countries. among which: India, Nepal, China, Papua-Indonesia, Thailand, Burma, the Philippines, Pakistan, Moldova, Kenya, Tanzania, Morocco, Yemen, Mexico, Turkey, Togo, Ukraine, and others. He also worked as member of several International Development Expert Panels.[ citation needed ]
Cernea has lectured in Universities in the United States, Europe, India, Japan, and China. In 1979–1980, he was a Fellow in Residence at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study (NIAS) in Wassenaar/the Hague. Harvard University invited him as Visiting Scholar in its Department of Anthropology and in the Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID) in the academic year 1990-1991. He also was Research Professor of Anthropology and International Affairs at George Washington University, where for several years he taught development anthropology and population resettlement. The Hohai University (Nanjing, China) appointed him as Honorary Professor of Social Development and Resettlement in 1992 and the China Three Gorges University (Yichang, China) appointed him Professor Emeritus. For his scholarly work on public policies, he received the Solon T. Kimball Award for Public Policy and Applied Anthropology from the American Anthropological Association, and the Bronislaw Malinowski Prize from the international Society for Applied Anthropology.[ citation needed ]
Cernea has authored and edited many books on the sociology of development: on social change, population displacement and resettlement, impoverishment and poverty reduction, cultural heritage protection, social forestry, grassroots organizations, sustainability and participation. His most recent books are: Researching the Culture in Agri-Culture (2006) and Cultural Heritage and Development: A Framework for Action in the Middle East and North Africa (2001, 2003). Among his other books are: Putting People First: Sociological Variables in Development (several editions, also translated in Japan, Mexico, China, Indonesia, and France), Research-Extension-Farmer: A Two-Way Continuum (1985);Anthropological Approaches to Resettlement: Policy, Practice, Theory (ed. with Scott Guggenheim, 1993); Resettlement and Development (1994, with S. Guggenheim and assoc.; Social Organization and Development Anthropology (1996); Social Assessment for Better Development (ed. with Ayse Kudat, 1997); Resettlement and Development (vol. I and II, published in China, 1996-1998); The Economics of Involuntary Resettlement (1999): and Risks and Reconstruction. Experiences of Resettlers and Refugees (2000, ed. with C. McDowell).[ citation needed ]
Key publications
Major Development Reports:
Books Published in Romania:
Rural sociology is a field of sociology traditionally associated with the study of social structure and conflict in rural areas. It is an active academic field in much of the world, originating in the United States in the 1910s with close ties to the national Department of Agriculture and land-grant university colleges of agriculture.
Bronisław Kasper Malinowski was a Polish-British anthropologist and ethnologist whose writings on ethnography, social theory, and field research have exerted a lasting influence on the discipline of anthropology.
Urban sociology is the sociological study of cities and urban life. One of the field’s oldest sub-disciplines, urban sociology studies and examines the social, historical, political, cultural, economic, and environmental forces that have shaped urban environments. Like most areas of sociology, urban sociologists use statistical analysis, observation, archival research, census data, social theory, interviews, and other methods to study a range of topics, including poverty, racial residential segregation, economic development, migration and demographic trends, gentrification, homelessness, blight and crime, urban decline, and neighborhood changes and revitalization. Urban sociological analysis provides critical insights that shape and guide urban planning and policy-making.
Fei Xiaotong or Fei Hsiao-tung was a Chinese anthropologist and sociologist. He was a pioneering researcher and professor of sociology and anthropology; he was also noted for his studies in the study of China's ethnic groups as well as a social activist. Starting in the late 1930s, he and his colleagues established Chinese sociology and his works were instrumental in laying a foundation for the development of sociological and anthropological studies in China, as well as in introducing social and cultural phenomena of China to the international community. His last post before his death in 2005 was as Professor of Sociology at Peking University.
History of anthropology in this article refers primarily to the 18th- and 19th-century precursors of modern anthropology. The term anthropology itself, innovated as a Neo-Latin scientific word during the Renaissance, has always meant "the study of man". The topics to be included and the terminology have varied historically. At present they are more elaborate than they were during the development of anthropology. For a presentation of modern social and cultural anthropology as they have developed in Britain, France, and North America since approximately 1900, see the relevant sections under Anthropology.
Shelton H. Davis was an American cultural anthropologist and activist for the rights of indigenous peoples. His academic and organizational work with Latin American indigenous communities contributed to the late 20th century public interest anthropology movement.
Development-induced displacement and resettlement (DIDR) occurs when people are forced to leave their homes in a development-driven form of forced migration. Historically, it has been associated with the construction of dams for hydroelectric power and irrigation, but it can also result from various development projects such as mining, agriculture, the creation of military installations, airports, industrial plants, weapon testing grounds, railways, road developments, urbanization, conservation projects, and forestry.
The sociology of culture, and the related cultural sociology, concerns the systematic analysis of culture, usually understood as the ensemble of symbolic codes used by a member of a society, as it is manifested in the society. For Georg Simmel, culture referred to "the cultivation of individuals through the agency of external forms which have been objectified in the course of history". Culture in the sociological field is analyzed as the ways of thinking and describing, acting, and the material objects that together shape a group of people's way of life.
Ronald Frankenberg was a British anthropologist and sociologist, known for his study of conflict and decision-making in a Welsh village. He also contributed to the development of medical anthropology.
The sociology of law, legal sociology, or law and society is often described as a sub-discipline of sociology or an interdisciplinary approach within legal studies. Some see sociology of law as belonging "necessarily" to the field of sociology, but others tend to consider it a field of research caught up between the disciplines of law and sociology. Still others regard it as neither a subdiscipline of sociology nor a branch of legal studies but as a field of research on its own right within the broader social science tradition. Accordingly, it may be described without reference to mainstream sociology as "the systematic, theoretically grounded, empirical study of law as a set of social practices or as an aspect or field of social experience". It has been seen as treating law and justice as fundamental institutions of the basic structure of society mediating "between political and economic interests, between culture and the normative order of society, establishing and maintaining interdependence, and constituting themselves as sources of consensus, coercion and social control".
Troy Smith Duster is an American sociologist with research interests in the sociology of science, public policy, race and ethnicity and deviance. He is a Chancellor’s Professor of Sociology at University of California, Berkeley, and professor of sociology and director of the Institute for the History of the Production of Knowledge at New York University. Duster is on the faculty advisor boards of the Berkeley Center for Social Medicine and the Berkeley Center for Right-Wing Studies.
Nikolas Rose is a British sociologist and social theorist. He is Distinguished Honorary Professor at the Research School of Social Sciences, in the College of Arts and Social Sciences at the Australian National University and Honorary Professor at the Institute of Advanced Studies at University College London. From January 2012 to until his retirement in April 2021 he was Professor of Sociology in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at King's College London, having joined King's to found this new Department. He was the Co-Founder and Co-Director of King's ESRC Centre for Society and Mental Health. Before moving to King's College London, he was the James Martin White Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics, director and founder of LSE's BIOS Centre for the Study of Bioscience, Biomedicine, Biotechnology and Society from 2002 to 2011, and Head of the LSE Department of Sociology (2002–2006). He was previously Professor of Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London, where he was Head of the Department of Sociology, Pro-Warden for Research and Head of the Goldsmiths Centre for Urban and Community Research and Director of a major evaluation of urban regeneration in South East London. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, the Royal Society of Arts and the Academy of Social Sciences, and a Fellow of the Royal Danish Academy of Science and Letters. He holds honorary doctorates from the University of Sussex, England, and Aarhus University, Denmark.
Sociology is the scientific study of human society that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. Regarded as a part of both the social sciences and humanities, sociology uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about social order and social change. Sociological subject matter ranges from micro-level analyses of individual interaction and agency to macro-level analyses of social systems and social structure. Applied sociological research may be applied directly to social policy and welfare, whereas theoretical approaches may focus on the understanding of social processes and phenomenological method.
In the People's Republic of China, the study of sociology has been developing steadily since its reestablishment in 1979. Chinese sociology has a strong focus on applied sociology, and has become an important source of information for Chinese policymakers.
Social anthropology is the study of patterns of behaviour in human societies and cultures. It is the dominant constituent of anthropology throughout the United Kingdom and much of Europe, where it is distinguished from cultural anthropology. In the United States, social anthropology is commonly subsumed within cultural anthropology or sociocultural anthropology.
The School of Social and Political Science (SSPS) at the University of Edinburgh is a unit within the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences. Its constituent departments conduct research and teaching in the following disciplines:
Vittorio Cotesta - Roccagorga (LT) is an Italian social scientist. At present he is conducting research into global society, cosmopolitism and human rights, sociological theories, cultures, civilizations and ethnic conflict.
Yu Xie is a Chinese-American sociologist and a sociology professor at Princeton University. He joined the University of Michigan as an assistant professor in 1989 and served as a professor from 1996 to 2015.
Scott Guggenheim is an American expert in international development and senior advisor to Afghan president Ashraf Ghani. He was formerly lead social scientist for East Asia and Pacific at the World Bank. He is also the senior social policy adviser for the AusAID-Indonesia Partnership Program.