Forced to Flee - (Program in Migration and Refugee Studies) by Peter W Van Arsdale (Hardcover)

About the Book

Author Peter W. Van Arsdale presents first-hand fieldwork conducted over a 30-year span in six refugee homelands ranging from Sudan to Bosnia. This expert research bridges the emergent refugee and human rights regimes, while addressing theories of obligation, justice, and structural violence.

Book Synopsis

Author Peter W. Van Arsdale presents first-hand fieldwork conducted over a 30-year span in six refugee homelands ranging from Sudan to Bosnia. This expert research bridges the emergent refugee and human rights regimes, while addressing theories of obligation, justice, and structural violence.

Review Quotes

Students will appreciate these well-written case studies. Recommended

Peter Van Arsdale has spent his career not only studying, but also living and breathing in shocking, violent, and complex refugee communities around the globe. This masterwork will impact refugee studies, giving us new and more effective paradigms for understanding the causes of flight and the role of the researcher in the midst of human suffering. Most importantly, it teaches us the true meaning of the term "human rights," and compels us to take action.

The lives that Van Arsdale so eloquently describes in Forced to Flee... serve as an important reminder of the real trauma and 'spectacular violence' that many victims of human rights violations have suffered. His profound respect for those who have been subjected to the ugliest and most cruel forms of human interaction forms the basis for his approach to pragmatic humanitarianism. Where much has been made of the need to Do No Harm and to preserve neutrality, Van Arsdale's approach instead suggests that committed, compassionate, and constructive engagement to alleviate suffering is not only possible, it is essential.

This remarkable book explores the fuzzy area where legal definitions of humanity and rights end, and where history and context shape emergent human rights. It does not shy away from speaking truth to power. Van Arsdale's considerable authority comes from years of dedicated work and personal engagement in the very situations he details. The resulting narratives are moving portraits of people navigating terror, and finding courage for the future. They are simultaneously depressing, horrible, hopeful, heroic, and always eye-opening.

With lucidity, compassion, and impeccable scholarship, Van Arsdale deconstructs evil, examining human rights abuses in Africa, Asia, Central America, and Europe. Are these catastrophes inevitable? Perhaps not. Van Arsdale elucidates the historical context and social structures underlying the world's tragedies. If human agency causes these tragedies, then human agency can stop them. "Forced to Flee" is an idealistic book, yet it is also an eminently practical one, as the solutions that Van Arsdale offers are both "morally possible" and based on real experience. An engrossing book for human rights activists, and, indeed, anyone who cares about stopping suffering wherever it occurs.

About the Author

Peter W. Van Arsdale is senior lecturer at the Graduate School of International Studies and faculty advisor at the Center On Rights Development at the University of Denver.