kavruch@gmu.edu
703-993-3607
703-993-1302 (fax)
3330 N. Washington Blvd.
Truland Building, 6th Floor
Arlington, VA 22201

Education

Ph.D. University of California at San Diego
M.A. University of California at San Diego
A.B. University of Chicago

Biography

Kevin Avruch is presently Professor of Conflict Resolution and Anthropology in the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (ICAR), and faculty and senior fellow in the Peace Operations Policy Program ( School of Public Policy), at George Mason University. He has taught at UCSD, the University of Illinois at Chicago and, since 1980, at George Mason, where he served as Coordinator of the Anthropology Program in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology from 1990-1996. In August, 2005, he became Associate Director of ICAR.
Professor Avruch has published more than fifty articles and essays and is author or editor of five books, Critical Essays on Israeli Society, Religion, and Government (1997), Culture and Conflict Resolution (1998) and Information Campaigns for Peace Operations (2000). His other writings include articles and essays on culture theory and conflict analysis and resolution, third party processes, cross-cultural negotiation, nationalist and ethnoreligious social movements, human rights, and politics and society in contemporary Israel. Professor Avruch has been book review editor of the journal Anthropological Quarterly, and serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Political and Military Sociology, Social Justice, and the University of Pennsylvania Press monograph series The Ethnography of Political Violence. Professor Avruch has lectured widely in the United States and abroad, and his work has been recognized by the International Association of Conflict Management and the United States Institute of Peace, where he spent the 1996-1997 academic year as senior fellow in the Jennings Randolph Program for International Peace.
Professor Avruch is currently working on projects investigating sources of political violence in protracted conflicts, the role of human rights and truth and reconciliation commissions in postconflict peacebuilding, and cultural aspects of complex humanitarian and peacekeeping operations.

Areas of Expertise

• Peacekeeping operations and postconflict peacebuilding
• Culture theory and conflict analysis resolution
• Third part processes
• Cross-cultural negotiation
• Natiionalist and ethnoreligious social movements
• Human rights
• Politics and society in contemporary Israel
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Teaching

Graduate Courses
" Introduction to Conflict Analysis and Resolution" (CONF 501/CONF 801)

"Conflict Theory" (CONF 601)

"Ethnic & Cultural Factors in Conflict Resolution" (CONF 720)

"Approaches to Violence" (CONF 729)

Selected Publications

“ Culture: Promoter of Peace and Justice or Conflict?” In Human Rights and Conflict.
(J. Mertus and J.W. Helsing, eds.). Washington D.C.: United States Institute of Peace Press. 2005a.
“ Culture, Apology, and International Negotiation: The Case of the Sino-U.S. ‘Spy Plane’ Crisis.” International Negotiation. 10(2):337-353 (with Z. Wang). 2005b.
“ Context and Pretext in Conflict Resolution.” Journal of Dispute Resolution 2003(2):353-365. 2004a.
“ Culture as Context, Culture as Communication: Considerations for Humanitarian Negotiators.” Harvard Negotiation Law Review 9:391-407. 2004b.
“ Type I and Type II Errors in Culturally Sensitive Conflict Resolution Practice.” Conflict Resolution Quarterly 20(3):351-71. 2003a.
“ Conceptualizing Professional Culture and International Negotiations.” In Professional Cultures in International Negotiation: Bridge Or Rift? (Gunnar Sjostedt, ed.). Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, pp. 201-216. 2003b.
“ Culture.” In Human Conflict: From Analysis To Intervention. (S. Cheldelin, D. Druckman, and L. Fast, eds.). London & New York: Continuum, pp. 140-153. 2003c.
“ The Context and Geography of Protracted Conflict: What Do I Need To Know About Culture?” In A Handbook of International Peacebuilding: Into the Eye of the Storm. (J.P. Lederach and J.M. Jenner, eds.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, pp. 75- 87. 2002a.
“ Cross-Cultural Conflict,” in, “Conflict Resolution,” ed. Keith W. Hipel, in the Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS). Oxford, U.K.: UNESCO, Eolss Publishers. On the web at: http://www.eolss.net. 2002b.
“ Truth and Reconciliation Commissions: A Review Essay and Annotated Bibliography.” Social Justice 2(1-2):47-108 (with B. Vejarano). (Republished in The Online Journal Of Peace and Conflict Resolution, Issue 4.2, Spring 2002; at web address: http://www.trinstitute.org/ojpcr/4_2recon.htm). 2001a.
“ Constructing Ethnicity: Culture and Ethnic Conflict in the New World Disorder.” American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 71(3):281-289. (Reprinted in, Race and Ethnicity: Comparative and Theoretical Approaches, J. Stone and R. Dennis, eds., Oxford: Blackwell, 2003, pp. 72- 82.) 2001b
“ Notes Toward Ethnographies of Conflict and Violence.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 30(5):637-648. 2001c
“ Culture and Negotiation Pedagogy.” Negotiation Journal 16(4):339-346. (Reprinted in Understanding Negotiation, M.L. Nelken, ed., Cincinnati OH: Anderson Publishing Co., 2001, pp. 51-57.) 2000a
“ Reciprocity, Equality and Status-Anxiety in the Amarna Letters.” In Amarna Diplomacy: The Beginnings of International Relations. (R. Cohen and R. Westbrook, eds.). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 154-164. 2000b