UMass Boston

Faculty & Staff Directory

Jeffrey Pugh

Title: Graduate Program Director/Associate Professor

Phone: 617.287.7489

Email: Jeffrey.Pugh@umb.edu

Department: Confl Res, Hum Sec & Globl Gov

Areas of Expertise

Peace and Conflict Studies , International Studies , Latin American Politics, Institutions (Political Science) , Refugee Studies, Migration Studies , Social Movements

Degrees

PhD in Political Science, Johns Hopkins University
BAs in Political Science and Speech Communication, University of Georgia

Professional Publications & Contributions

Additional Information

Jeff Pugh is an associate professor of conflict resolution in the McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston. He is also a visiting scholar of conflict management and Latin American studies affiliated with the Johns Hopkins University School for Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington, DC. Pugh received his PhD in political science from the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, after completing BAs in political science and speech communication from the University of Georgia. He is also the executive director of the Center for Mediation, Peace, and Resolution of Conflict (CEMPROC), based in Quito, Ecuador. He was previously assistant professor of political science at Providence College.

Pugh's research focuses on the role of non-state actors and international institutions influencing governance and peacebuilding in the Global South, especially in migrant-receiving areas of Ecuador. His book, released in February 2021, with Oxford University Press entitled The Invisibility Bargain: Governance Networks and Migrant Human Security, argues that under the informal host-society expectations of economic contributions combined with political and social invisibility that he calls the ‘invisibility bargain’, migrants often gain access to rights, resources, and protection indirectly through connections and brokered relationships within a governance network comprised of non-state, international, and state organizations. Drawing on 15 months of field work over eight years in six provinces in the northern border region of Ecuador, he builds his case on the basis of evidence from more than 170 interviews and more than 650 surveys of migrants in these 6 provinces. In addition to his book project, Pugh has published peer reviewed articles in International Migration Review, Latin American Politics and Society, International Studies Perspectives, PS, Journal of Peacebuilding and Development, Conflict Resolution Quarterly, Bulletin of Latin American Studies, and Negotiation Journal, among others. He has also contributed public-sphere op eds, policy reports, book chapters, and training manuals that translate his research into actionable and policy relevant recommendations.

His work has been recognized with best paper awards from the International Studies Association Ethnicity, Nationality, and Migration (ENMISA) section, the Migration and Citizenship section of the American Political Science Association (APSA), the Middle

Atlantic Council of Latin American Studies (MACLAS), the New England Council on Latin American Studies, and his dissertation won the 2011 Peace and Justice Studies Association Best Graduate Dissertation of the Year award, among other recognitions. He was a 2014-2015 Fulbright Scholar in FLACSO Ecuador. Under his leadership, CEMPROC has reached over 6,000 adults and children from more than 30 countries around the globe with its conflict resolution and peacemaking training programs.

Pugh has developed innovative experiential and study abroad programs to teach international conflict resolution in the Global South at the university and practitioner levels through a combination of service-learning, simulations, lecture/discussion, and other teaching strategies. Currently, he co-directs the UMass Boston/FLACSO Summer Institute on Conflict Transformation across Borders in Quito-Ecuador. He is also a founding member of the organizing committee for the Regional Institute for the Study and Practice of Strategic Nonviolent Action in the Americas, together with ICNC, FLACSO, and the Catholic University of Ecuador (PUCE). Pugh has taught Negotiation, Theories of Conflict Resolution, Immigration & Conflict, Human Security, International Conflict Resolution, Integrative Seminar, Peace & Justice, International Relations, Latin American Politics, Politics, International Organizations, and Model Organization of American States. Pugh was appointed as an interviewer forming part of the New England/USA node of the Colombian Truth Commission’s work with Colombian victims in exile. He served as past president of the Middle Atlantic Council on Latin American Studies (MACLAS), serves on the Executive Council of the Latin American Studies Association Ecuadorian Studies section and the editorial board of the Middle Atlantic Review of Latin American Studies, and he regularly serves as an expert witness for asylum cases and in immigration court hearings involving Ecuadorians in the United States.

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