ANTHONY OLIVER-SMITH is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at the University of Florida. He held the Munich Re Foundation Chair of Social Vulnerability at the United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security 2007–2008. He has done anthropological research and consultation on issues relating to involuntary resettlement, as well as the impacts of natural and technological disasters, in Peru, Honduras, India, Brazil, Jamaica, Mexico, Japan, and the United States since the 1970s.