[1][2] Broekhuijse, the son of a farmer from Haarzuilens in the center of the Netherlands, studied Non-Western Sociology at Utrecht University where he graduated cum laude in 1958.

Broekhuijse was researching the living conditions of the urbanized Papuans in Hollandia, when he was transferred that same year to post Wamena in the eastern highlands, where the Dutch government still lacked a firm foothold.

In those years, Broekhuijse was also an advisor and participant of the American Harvard-Peabody Expedition (1961–1965) to the Dani, led by the cinematographer and anthropologist Robert Gardner.

The same year he joined the Anthropology Department of the Royal Tropical Institute (Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen, KIT) in Amsterdam as a scientific officer, with Jan van Baal (1909–1992), Dutch anthropologist and former governor of New Guinea, at the helm since 1959.

Broekhuijse later donated his extensive collection of ethnographic objects from the Dani and the Lani people of Western New Guinea to the Tropenmuseum at Amsterdam and passed away in 2020 at the age of 90.