Peter W. Van Arsdale

Peter W. Van Arsdale is an American academic who retired as director of African Initiatives at the University of Denver, Josef Korbel School of International Studies, where he also served as Senior Lecturer. He previously served as a senior researcher for eCrossCulture Corporation, based in Colorado. An applied cultural anthropologist, he has worked in E. Africa, S.E. Asia, the Balkans, Latin America, the Caribbean, 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 National Association for the Practice of Anthropology and known analytically for his “tree of rights” and his “theory of obligation.” He is co-founder of The Denver Hospice, and co-discoverer in 1974 of a band of previously uncontacted Citak people in Indonesian New Guinea. Since 1979, he has been a fellow of The Explorers Club. He currently serves as Affiliate Faculty Member (pro bono) at Regis University. Since 2006, his book Forced to Flee has been a best-seller in the refugee field.