Nerve V. Macaspac

I am a political geographer, digital cartographer, and filmmaker. My current interdisciplinary and ethnographic research focuses on spatialities of peace. I study the phenomenon of community-led spaces of peace amid violent conflicts, popularly known as “peace zones,” and the daily work required in maintaining these spaces as countertopographies of the geographies of state counterinsurgency and non-state insurgency. I use the term insurgent peace to refer to the quotidian work of civilian communities in creating and maintaining spaces of peace as processes of carving alternative political spaces of unarmed civilian protection during active war or political violence, particularly when state or non-state armed actors fail to do so or are the sources of violence toward civilians.

Supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), Social Science Research Council (SSRC), International Peace Research Association (IPRA), and the American Association of Geographers (AAG), my research contributes to our understanding of the geographies of peace and conflict, local, everyday or indigenous peacebuilding, civilian agency in war, unarmed civilian protection. At stake is a re-thinking peace as a set of dynamic social, spatial and temporal processes rooted upon a refusal of violence. I have published my findings in Geopolitics, Cooperation and Conflict, Peacebuilding, Journal of Pacifism and Nonviolence, and other publications.  

Currently, I am a Co-Investigator for “Creating Safer Spaces: Strengthening Civilian Protection Amidst Violent Conflict,” a 4-year international and interdisciplinary research project funded with £2M GBP by the UKRI’s Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). Our research aims to strengthen the field of unarmed civilian protection (UCP) and community self-protection research to create safer space for more communities amidst violent conflict. Learn more about our research here.

I am also a Co-Investigator for “Building Southeast Asia Consortium at SUNY and CUNY,” a multi-year project to build Southeast Asian Studies in New York’s public universities funded with over $500,000 by the Henry Luce Foundation.

Currently, I am an Assistant Professor at The City University of New York (CUNY) where I am a Graduate Faculty at the School of Information Studies (SIS) at Queens College. I also serve as a Doctoral Faculty at the Earth and Environmental Sciences (EES) Doctoral Program and as a Graduate Faculty at the Certificate Program in Interactive Technology and Pedagogy (ITP) at The Graduate Center, CUNY.

Previously, I served as a Faculty at the Department of Political Science and Global Affairs at CUNY’s College of Staten Island (CSI). At CSI, I taught courses in Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Urban Geography, World Regions, and Introduction to Geography. I also formed and run GeospatialCSI, a curricular initiative that aims to build a space and community among students to produce creative, collaborative and public-facing Urban Geography-centered inquiry and research.

Since my appointment as a CUNY faculty in 2018, I have served in various faculty capacities. I was a Visiting Scholar  at the Center for International Human Rights at CUNY John Jay College (2021-2023), Faculty Fellow at the CUNY Center for Place, Culture and Politics (2019-20, 2023-24), Faculty Fellow  for the Black, Race, and Ethnic Studies Initiative (BRESI) Ph.D. Curriculum Development at CUNY Graduate Center (2022-23), Faculty Fellow for the Andrew W. Mellon Transformative Learning in the Humanities at CUNY (2021-2022), and Faculty Fellow for CUNY Social Practice (2021-2022).

My research efforts and contributions have been recognized by my peers at CUNY and beyond. In 2023, I was awarded the CUNY Henry Wasser Awards for Outstanding Research for Assistant Professors. I also have been inducted into the Phi Beta Delta Honor Society for International Scholars. Prior to my doctoral studies and before serving as faculty at CUNY, I was awarded the prestigious Rotary Peace Fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley.

My professional training and record are multidisciplinary. I received my PhD in Geography (2018) from the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) with the supervision of Dr. Adam Moore along with members of my dissertation committee, Dr. Eric Sheppard, Dr. Helga Leitner, and Dr. Jessica Cattelino. I also completed a Graduate Certificate in Urban Humanities from UCLA’s School of Architecture and Urban Design. Prior to my doctoral studies, I received my Masters in Asian Studies from the University of California at Berkeley with the supervision of Dr. Jeffrey Hadler along with members of my thesis committee, Dr. Michael Watts and Dr. Nancy Scheper-Hughes. Before moving to the United States, I received my Bachelors in Education (Social Sciences major and English minor) from the University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman and served as a faculty at the UP Integrated School.

As an artist and filmmaker, I have served as a Board Member of the Echo Park Film Center in Los Angeles where I curated ACTION! Cinema as Sanctuary (2017), a set of film screenings and workshops with the support of The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences (Oscars). My documentary and experimental films have been screened in New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Manila, among other cities. More recently, I have co-curated and installed exhibitions with the Creating Safer Space Research Network at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City. This exhibition was also installed in Geneva, Thailand, Kenya, the United Kingdom, Colombia, and Brazil.