Peter W. Van Arsdale


Peter W. Van Arsdale, Ph.D., is Director of at the University of Denver, Josef Korbel School of International Studies, where he also serves as Adjunct Professor. He recently served as a Senior Researcher for , based in Colorado. An applied cultural anthropologist, he has worked in E. Africa, S.E. Asia, the Balkans, Latin America, and North America, emphasizing community water resources, human rights, refugee resettlement, and humanitarian intervention. He is a noted author, journal editor, and former president of the and known analytically for his “tree of rights” and his “theory of obligation.” He is co-founder of , and co-discoverer of a band of previously uncontacted Citak or Korowai people in Indonesian New Guinea. Since 1979, he has been a fellow of The Explorers Club.

Career

With a background in psychology, Van Arsdale earned his doctorate in applied and cultural anthropology from the University of Colorado - Boulder. His doctoral research was conducted in Irian Jaya, Indonesia, in 1973/1974 on issues of socio-economic and socio-political change. His dissertation was published as a book in 1975. During that period of field work, he also co-led an expedition of discovery into the Citak - Korowai region of Papua.
On both a full- and part-time basis, he has worked at the . He served first in the Department of Anthropology, and since 1980 at the Graduate School of International Studies. There, he was co-developer of both the Program in Humanitarian Assistance and the Project Bosnia service learning program. From 2010 to 2013, Van Arsdale served as Editor-in-Chief of the peer-reviewed journal . From 2008-2010 he was the chair of the Committee on Human Rights & Social Justice of the .
Outside of academe, from 1986 through 1994 he served as program specialist for Refugee, Immigrant, and American Indian Issues at the Colorado Division of Mental Health; immediately thereafter, he served as head of Program Evaluation for the . During this period, he was co-developer of the division’s refugee and immigrant program; co-developer of the World Federation for Mental Health’s national plan for collaborative refugee and immigrant resource centers; and co-developer of the National Association for the Practice of Anthropology/Society for Applied Anthropology’s national training guidelines for applied anthropologists.
In 1978, Van Arsdale co-founded the Hospice of Metro Denver, which has grown into the largest hospice in the Rocky Mountain region. He also co-founded the region’s first institution specializing in psychological, legal and social service care for asylum seekers and other refugees: the Rocky Mountain Survivors Center. He has served as an expert witness/analyst in cases involving Sudanese, Ethiopian and Bosnian asylum seekers, and, as a consultant on related human rights abuses. Independently, he co-founded the .
He has worked in a number of countries worldwide: Indonesia, Timor-Leste, Sudan, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Bosnia, Romania, Israel, Palestine, Peru, Chile, Guyana, El Salvador and the United States. Often featuring refugee issues, his applied research and community outreach have engaged topics involving resource development, human rights, mental health, and humanitarianism. Most recently, he has worked on humanitarian issues at the military-civilian interface. In 2016, through LTG Associates, he assisted in evaluating a human-centered design program for NASA.

Awards

In 1995, Van Arsdale was recognized as the Outstanding Professor at what is now called the Josef Korbel School. In 2002, he was recipient of the Omer C. Stewart Memorial Award for contributions to applied anthropology.
More recently, he was elected to the Arvada West Hall of Fame and was recognized for work on water and sanitation systems in Kibera, Kenya. In 2008, Van Arsdale received the "Voice for the Voiceless" award for his work on behalf of refugees, and in 2017 he received the "Kujali" award for his work on behalf of hospice, in the U.S. and Tanzania.

Publications