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Kevin Avruch

Kevin Avruch
Dean, School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution; Henry Hart Rice Professor of Conflict Resolution and Professor of Anthropology

Ph.D, Anthropology, 1978, University of California San Diego
M.A, Anthropology, 1973, University of California San Diego
A.B, Anthropology (Honors), 1972, University of Chicago

Biography

Kevin Avruch, since 2013 S-CAR's Dean, is also the Henry Hart Rice Professor of Conflict Resolution and Professor of Anthropology in the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, and faculty and senior fellow in the Peace Operations Policy Program (School of Public Policy), at George Mason University. He received his A.B. from the University of Chicago and M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of California at San Diego. He has taught at UCSD, the University of Illinois at Chicago and, since 1980, at GMU, where he served as Coordinator of the Anthropology Program in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology from 1990-1996. From 2005-2008 he served as Associate Director of S-CAR.

Professor Avruch has published more than sixty-five articles and essays and is author or editor of seven books, including Critical Essays on Israeli Society, Religion, and Government (1997), Culture and Conflict Resolution (1998) Information Campaigns for Peace Operations (2000), Context and Pretext in Conflict Resolution: Culture, Identity, Power and Practice (2012), and Conflict Resolution and Human Needs: Linking Theory and Practice (2013, with C.R. Mitchell). His other writings include articles and essays on culture theory and conflict analysis and resolution, theorizing power and practice, third party processes, cross-cultural negotiation, nationalist and ethnoreligious social movements, human rights, and politics and society in contemporary Israel. Professor Avruch has lectured widely in the United States and abroad.  He spent the 1996-1997 academic year as senior fellow in the Jennings Randolph Program for International Peace at the U



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Awards and Honors
Fulbright Specialist Grantee
Fulbright Specialist teaching and consulting at the Malaviya Peace Research Centre, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India, December 2011
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Titlesort icon Semester
Introduces field of conflict analysis and resolution for doctoral students. Examines definitions of conflict and...
Explores violence from variety of intellectual and political perspectives. Readings are wide-ranging and...
Examines the role culture plays in genesis, structuring, and resolution of processes of conflict within and between...
Topics vary; they are announced each academic year.
Taken in last semester of master’s student course work. Assists in developing students’ own theories of conflict and conflict...
Examines major theories of conflict causation and motivation. Emphasizes need for theories to inform processes of conflict resolution. Weaves...
Introduces field of conflict analysis and resolution. Examines definitions of conflict and diverse views of its...
Covers deeply rooted, intractable, or protracted social conflicts around core issues of identity, including race,...
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Title Published Date
September 14, 2016
Compared to analyses of and prescriptions for negotiation, those for mediation vary widely and fundamentally. This essay explores why this is the case.
Category: Book Chapter
2013
This edited volume examines Basic Human Needs theory and interactive problem solving, looking at recent developments in thinking about both and how these might affect peacebuilding in contemporary conflicts of the twenty-first century.The era in the immediate...
Category: Book
January 01, 2013
This article is a personal reflection on the development of the field of conflict resolution/peacebuilding and conflict studies from the perspective of the classroom: how what is thought necessary to teach has changed as the field has grown and reracted to often...
Category: Journal Article
February 2012
Written by a distinguished scholar, this book explores themes of culture, identity, and power as they relate to conceptions of practice in conflict resolution and peacebuilding. Among the topics covered are ethnic and identity conflicts; culture, relativism,...
Category: Book
2011
By Nike Carstaphen, Kevin Avruch and Laurel Collins:  In support of the Irish Peace Process, the Walsh Visa Programme provided job and training opportunities in the United States for unemployed youths from Northern Ireland and designated border counties of...
Category: Journal Article
2010
Foreward, by Dennis Sandole:There is a natural tension between “forewording” a group of presentations made in honor of a distinguished colleague on the occasion of his or her retirement and one made in memoriam of that same colleague as a consequence...
Category: Papers & Reports
February 01, 2010
This article considers some of the main features of so-called truth and reconciliation commissions, their history and structure and their characteristic concerns with respect to their central dilemmas, including: how they grapple with notions of truth, justice,...
Category: Journal Article
Fall 2009
A project of the Singapore Mediation Centre, this book (An Asian Perspective on Mediation) is a welcome addition to the growing literature on non-Western modes of conflict resolution (negotiation and mediation in particular), as well as a contribution to the...
Category: Journal Article
April 01, 2009
This article compares "training" to "education" generally and, specifically, with respect to the question of how this distinction plays a role in teaching negotiation and the possible emergence of a "second generation" of negotiation...
Category: Journal Article
October 27, 2008
Executive Summary:The Irish Peace Process Cultural and Training Program (IPPCTP) was a groundbreaking initiative introduced by Representative James T. Walsh (R-NY) and signed into law in October 1998. The IPPCTP is also known as the Walsh Visa Program (WVP). The...
Category: Papers & Reports
September 09, 2008
Category: Book Chapter
September 01, 2008
Category: Book Chapter
February 01, 2007
Category: Book Chapter
December 06, 2006
Category: Book Chapter
April 04, 2006
Beginning in the summer of 2003, as part of the "Broad Field Project" in conflict resolution directed by Christopher Honeyman, and in collaboration with Professor Andrea Schneider of the Marquette University Law School, an effort was made to elucidate a...
Category: Journal Article
2005
This article traces the course of the Sino-U.S. negotiation in April 2001, to resolve the crisis following the collision of a U.S. surveillance aircraft with a Chinese fighter jet off of China's coast and the subsequent unauthorized emergency landing of the U.S....
Category: Journal Article
March 01, 2005
From within the discipline of conflict resolution -- especially as it sought to differentiate itself from the then-dominant perspectives of international relations in the late 1970s and early 1980s -- the notion of "intractability" links to the work of...
Category: Journal Article
January 01, 2004
In this essay I consider some of the special problems that humanitarian workers in the field encounter when engaging in negotiations with parties whose cultural backgrounds differ substantially from their own. After a brief description of the parameters of...
Category: Journal Article
December 2003
Drawing on recent, critical work dealing with culture theory, ethnicity, and multiculturalism, this essay seeks to address the nexus between conflict resolution theory and practice, and aims primarily to contribute to the work of practitioners functioning as third...
Category: Book
2003
In her wide ranging and provocative essay, Carrie Menkel-Meadow manages to portray both of self assurance of the mature scholar and experienced practitioner, as well as (serially, if not quite simultaneously) the anxiety and doubt of the self critical agnostic...
Category: Journal Article
August 01, 2003
Understanding the concept of culture is a crucial prerequisite for effective conflict analysis and resolution. That said, "Culture, " the literary critic and theorist Raymond Williams points out, "is one of  the two or three most complicated...
Category: Book Chapter
October 01, 2002
This volume follows closely on the heels of Gopin's first Oxford University Press book, Between Eden and Armageddon: The Future of World Religions, Violence, and Peacemaking (2000), revisiting some of the themes covered there, but now focused on the three...
Category: Journal Article
2002
This is an overview of the nearly two dozen "truth commissions" that have been conducted around the world since 1973, following major atrocities involving human rights violations. The UN (El Salvador) and various NGOs (Rwanda, Paraguay) have sponsored...
Category: Journal Article
October 2001
This article examines the characteristics of recent ethnographies of "conflict zones," especially those that seek to bring an experience-near depiction of violence to the reader. These works are contrasted to older ethnographic treatments of violence. A...
Category: Journal Article
June 01, 1999
The military's conception of information operations is broad, dividing the domain into three functional areas. The first has to do with how information relates to the overall success of the mission. Information in this sense includes intelligence, logistics,...
Category: Book
October 01, 1998
After years of relative neglect, culture is finally receiving due recognition as a key factor in the evolution and resolution of conflicts. Unfortunately, however, when theorists and practitioners of conflict resolution speak of “culture,” they often...
Category: Book
July 30, 1998
This unique collection of comparable case studies addresses the need to assess modes of conflict resolution in a larger sociocultural context with attention to varying approaches and cultural perspectives. Editors Avruch, Black, and Scimecca, along with other...
Category: Book
June 01, 1998
By "interactive conflict resolution" (ICR) Fisher means face-to-face, small group discussions between unofficial representatives of parties (from identity groups or states) that are engaged in destructive conflict; these discussions are aimed at conflict...
Category: Journal Article
June 01, 1997
This book is part of a series of review volumes sponsored by the Association for Israel Studies that provides a framework for discussion of research and scholarship on all aspects of Israeli society. It brings together original review essays commenting on issues...
Category: Book
February 01, 1996
Category: Book Chapter
December 01, 1993
Culture, power and international negotiations: understanding palau-US status negotiations SAGE publications, Inc.1993DOI:10.1177/03058298930220030701 peter W.Black department of sociology and anthropology and member of the faculty liaison committee of the...
Category: Journal Article
November 01, 1993
In a thoughtful 1989 paper, Dennis Sandole and joseph Scimecca discuss a field of action and scholarship they call Conflict and Peace Studes or "CAPS". They describe this field as a dynamic context that includes conflict analysis, management and...
Category: Journal Article
August 01, 1993
Designed for postgraduates or researchers who wish to understand the integration of theory and practice in conflict resolution, this volume contains a series of essays which aims to help readers understand and deal with the major problems of violent conflict at...
Category: Book
January 01, 1991
This article arises from an ongoing project in the theory of conflict resolution focused on what can be called "the culture question." Our aim here is to sharpen the sense of how culture is understood in conflict resolution.
Category: Journal Article
May 01, 1987
Since the 1960s the study of ethnicity has become a forum for vigorous inquiry among anthropologists, in part, I suspect, because it allowed us to rejuvenate the central discourse of our discipline, on the concept of culture. Is ethnicity to be understood...
Category: Journal Article
January 01, 1987
Category: Journal Article
September 01, 1986
In its first decades, studies of Politics in Israel-regardless of the number of time the word "change" appeared in their titles-were more likely to assume an underlying continuity than its opposites. Such continuity was exemplified in their undergirding...
Category: Journal Article
September 01, 1984
The 16 chapters in this book come from a conference at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London in 1979. Three chapter editor Trapper's introduction concluding pieces by Ernest Gellner and Andrew Strathern are general in coverage. The remaining papers...
Category: Journal Article
October 01, 1982
Most anthropological treatments of entrepreneurship view the entrepreneur as an innovator concerned with maximizing profits. In the work of Fredrik Barth, the profit-seeking aspect has been generalized in a model of social organization based on transactional...
Category: Journal Article
June 01, 1982
The case of immigration to Israel presents an excellent opportunity to follow Erickson's lead to conceptualizing certain matters of identity "in our time" one aspect of the problem of identity and modernity.
Category: Journal Article
September 01, 1981
Subject classification:- Religion: Judaism; Anthropology: Cultural and Social; Sociology: General.
Category: Book
April 01, 1979
In the period following the 1993 Yom Kippur War, a new movement has gained increasing popular support in Israel. Called Gush Emunim ("The bloc of the faithful"), the movement presents an irredentist stance vis-a-vis the west Bank (Judea and Samaria) and...
Category: Journal Article
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February 20, 2017
Virginia Del. Mark D. Sickles (D-43 Fairfax) introduced the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (S-CAR) at
Category: Television Appearances

February 2017
Dear Mr. Ambassador:As Dean of the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University, I write to
Category: Newsletter Article

November 30, 2016
Open letter to President-elect Donald Trump and government officials at all levelsTake an urgent stand to build respect
Category: Newspaper Article

July 07, 2016
George Mason University PhD student Carol Daniel Kasbari is a longtime activist, speaker and writer who has lived and
Category: Newspaper Article

April 18, 2016
“Conflict happens in isolation.”Wow, that’s it. A sense of awareness ignited as I listened to Kristin
Category: Newspaper Article

April 14, 2016
"Conflict happens in isolation.”Wow, that’s it. A sense of awareness ignited as I listened to Kristin
Category: Newspaper Article

April 05, 2016
George Mason University’s School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution’s new international retreat and
Category: Newspaper Article

March 2016
"Governments cannot do the whole job themselves. Increasingly, change comes from the bottom up and not from the
Category: Newsletter Article

September 21, 2015
George Mason University’s School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution will sign a memo of understanding Tuesday,
Category: Newspaper Article

November 08, 2014
A day-long conference on social justice and creating change in communities in conflict will feature internationally
Category: Newspaper Article

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Title Event Datesort icon
Join us for an evening of networking, open house tours of Point of View, and keynote remarks from Tom Davis, member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 - 2008 for Virginia's 11th District and Jim Moran, member of theU.S. House of Representatives from 1991 - 2015 for Virginia's
April 30, 2017
Disturbing The PeaceScreening of an award-winning film with Q&A with the filmmaker Stephen Apkon and Combatants for PeaceMonday, February 27, 20172:30 – 4:30PMMetropolitan Building, Room 5183Arlington Campus“Disturbing the Peace” is an award-winning film that tells the
February 27, 2017
S-CAR Graduate Student Association Presents:S-CAR Dean's TalkWednesday, February 22, 20173:00pm - 4:30pmMetropolitan Building, room 5183  Interested to know what is going on at S-CAR? Learn about S-CAR from the Dean himself. Come by and ask Dean Avruch question! Food and refreshments
February 22, 2017
Public Lecture by Rev. Dr. Clement Mweyang Aapengnuo Ghana: Conflict and DemocracyWednesday, February 8, 20172:00PM - 4:00PMMetropolitan Building, room 5183RSVPRev. Dr. Clement Mweyang Aapengnuo is the co-founder of 72 Africa, serving as its President and head of African Operati
February 08, 2017
Dissertation Proposal Defense - Soolmaz AbooaliMonday, January 23, 20172:00pm - 4:00pmMetropolitan Building, room 5000Sport for Society: A Theory-Practice Exploration into how Sport is used to Address ConflictCommitteeDr. Mara Schoeny (Chair)Dr. Kevin AvruchDr. Craig Esherick AbstractThe
January 23, 2017
When Students Misbehave: Student Discipline from the Insight ApproachWednesday, November 9, 20161:00PM - 3:00PM Metropolitain Building, room 5183 Committee Memebers:Chair: Dr. Solon Simmons,           Dr. Kevin Avruch,           
November 09, 2016
Join Kevin Avruch and fellow S-CAR alumni for a networking and social brunch at Ovvio Osteria in Merrifield, VA! We are offering a prix fixe menu of seasonally fresh Italian favorites and mimosas for $20.
October 15, 2016
Please join us for the welcoming reception for mid-career civic activists and democratic reform leaders from the Middle East and Noth AfricaThursday October 13th 2pm - 4:30pmMetropolitan Building 5183This event is for S-CAR community members only.Please
October 13, 2016
Dear S-CAR communityWednesday September 28th at 3:45pmMetropolitan Building, Room 5000Daniel Bar-Tal, one of the leading scholars of the psychology of conflict, is coming to DC on Wednesday the 28th, to promote his political initiative "Save Israel - Stop the Occupation&
September 28, 2016
Dissertation Proposal Defense: Fakhira E. HallounMonday, April 2512:00-2:00pmMetropolitan Building Room 5145Committee Members:Chairs: Prof. Kevin AvruchProf. Sara CobbProf. Mohammed Abu-NimerThe Collective Identity and Discourse of Struggle of Palestinian Citizens of IsraelThis study will
April 25, 2016
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Next Steps towards Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Resolution:The Role of Incentives for PeaceWednesday, November 16, 20162:30pm - 4:00pmMetropolitan Building, Room 5183Dr. Nimrod Goren The stagnation in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process leads the international community to consider which
November 16, 2016
 This research examines the differences between the perceptions of the U.S.-led international intervention actors and the Afghan population, particularly in the area of security and justice over the period between 2001 and 2006. Understanding these perceptions was instructive in a
April 25, 2012
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