Barbara Adam is Emerita Professor at Cardiff University’s School of Social Sciences. The social temporal has been the primary intellectual project of her academic career, resulting in five research monographs and a large number of publications in which she sought to bring time to the center of social science analysis. This focus facilitated a unique social theory, whose relevance transcends disciplines and is taught across the Arts and the Humanities as well as the Social and Environmental Sciences. On the basis of this work, Adam has been awarded two book prizes as well as numerous theory-based research grants and fellowships. She is founding editor of the journal Time
ABSTRACT An influential collection of chapters on structuration theory and the work of Anthony Gi... more ABSTRACT An influential collection of chapters on structuration theory and the work of Anthony Giddens by the author and others
Abstract: In this article, the authors discuss the time (temporal) dimension within transport tha... more Abstract: In this article, the authors discuss the time (temporal) dimension within transport that is often overlooked. They focus on exposing the deeply embedded values in Western culture in which the mechanized clock dominates and the resulting mobility patterns rate ...
<p>This chapter comprises an interview between Barbara Adam and the editors, and is followe... more <p>This chapter comprises an interview between Barbara Adam and the editors, and is followed by Adam's 'Honing Futures', which is presented in four short verses of distilled theory. In the interview Adam reflects on thirty-five years of futures-thinking rooted in her deeply original work on time and temporality, and her innovative response to qualitative and linear definitions of time within the social sciences. The interview continues with a discussion of the way Adam's thinking on futures intersects in her work with ideas of ethics and collective responsibility politics and concludes with a brief rationale for writing theory in verse form. In 'Honing Futures', a piece of futures theory verse form, Adam charts the movements and moments in considerations of the Not Yet and futurity's active creation: from pluralized imaginings of the future, to an increasingly tangible and narrower anticipated future, to future-making as designing and reality-creating performance. Collectively, the verses identify the varied complex interdependencies of time, space, and matter with the past and future in all iterations of honing and making futures.</p>
ABSTRACT An influential collection of chapters on structuration theory and the work of Anthony Gi... more ABSTRACT An influential collection of chapters on structuration theory and the work of Anthony Giddens by the author and others
Abstract: In this article, the authors discuss the time (temporal) dimension within transport tha... more Abstract: In this article, the authors discuss the time (temporal) dimension within transport that is often overlooked. They focus on exposing the deeply embedded values in Western culture in which the mechanized clock dominates and the resulting mobility patterns rate ...
<p>This chapter comprises an interview between Barbara Adam and the editors, and is followe... more <p>This chapter comprises an interview between Barbara Adam and the editors, and is followed by Adam's 'Honing Futures', which is presented in four short verses of distilled theory. In the interview Adam reflects on thirty-five years of futures-thinking rooted in her deeply original work on time and temporality, and her innovative response to qualitative and linear definitions of time within the social sciences. The interview continues with a discussion of the way Adam's thinking on futures intersects in her work with ideas of ethics and collective responsibility politics and concludes with a brief rationale for writing theory in verse form. In 'Honing Futures', a piece of futures theory verse form, Adam charts the movements and moments in considerations of the Not Yet and futurity's active creation: from pluralized imaginings of the future, to an increasingly tangible and narrower anticipated future, to future-making as designing and reality-creating performance. Collectively, the verses identify the varied complex interdependencies of time, space, and matter with the past and future in all iterations of honing and making futures.</p>
While the focus of m ost aspects of our intensified social life is narrowing down to the present,... more While the focus of m ost aspects of our intensified social life is narrowing down to the present, the futures we create on a daily basis cast ever longer shadows. In this situation a chasm is opening up between the technological production of increasingly expanding futures and a predictive capacity that is getting ever shorter. The paper is concerned with this drifting apart of knowledge and practice and explores some key challenges, such as the political vacuum, the knowledge vacuum and the ethical vacuum, that arise with contemporary politics of posterity.
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Books by Barbara Adam
Papers by Barbara Adam