Profile
Barbara Adams is a sociologist whose interdisciplinary research looks at how knowledge is produced and political action is initiated through art and design projects. She received her PhD in Sociology from the 鶹ýɫƬ for Social Research (NSSR) where her doctoral research was supported by a fellowship from the Graduate Institute for Design, Ethnography, and Social Thought (GIDEST). From 2022-2024, Barbara coordinated the Anthropology + Design Graduate Minor at NSSR.
Her current book project is focused on creative and poetic forms of social research and considers how art and design might redirect sociological thinking. She is also working on a manuscript that examines the politics of helping in socially engaged art and design projects. Her publications include the book Design as Future-Making (Bloomsbury Academic), the essay “Centers of Experience: Bodies and Objects in Today’s Museums” in Experience Design (Bloomsbury Academic), an afterword ("Proximity and the Ethics of Engagement") to the book Collaborative Social Design (Routledge), and essays ("Art, Fabulation, and Practicing the Worlds We Want" and "Coordinates of Speculative Solidarity") for the UNHCR series, Project Unsung.
Previously, Barbara was co-editor-in-chief of the journal Design and Culture (2018-2026), a researcher at the Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability Lab (DESIS Lab), and the Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Design at Wesleyan University where she taught in the Science in Society Program, the Center for the Study of Public Life, and the Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance. She now serves as a Board Member at Design and Culture.
Degrees Held
Barbara holds an MA and a Ph.D in Sociology from the 鶹ýɫƬ for Social Research (NSSR) and an MA in Social Sciences (Pedagogical Sciences) from the University of Amsterdam.
Recent Publications
Books and Book Chapters
Adams, Barbara (2023) “,” in Collaborative Social Design with Indigenous Communities, Carmen Malvar. Routledge.
Acarín, Xavier and Barbara Adams (2015) “,” in Experience Design, Peter Benz (ed.). London: Bloomsbury Academic, pp. 119-132.
Adams, Barbara and Susan Yelavich, eds. (2014) , London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Essays and Interviews
","Design and Culture 17(3) (with Jilly Traganou), 2025.
“Public Library Workers: Unconditional Hospitality and Shared Leadership,” Tensions of Care, Antipode, (with John Bruce), forthcoming 2026.
“” Design and Culture 13(1) (with Denise Milstein), 2021.
","Design and Culture 13(1) (with Betti Marenko, and Jilly Traganou), 2021.
“,” Design and Culture 11(2): 153-5 (with Mahmoud Keshavarz, and Jilly Traganou), 2019.
“,” NORDES 2019: Who Cares? no. 8 (with Mariana Amatullo, John Bruce, Lara Penin, Eduardo Staszowski), 2019.
"" Project Unsung, Innovation Service, UNHCR, 2021.
"." Project Unsung, Innovation Service, UNHCR, 2021.
“,” International Studio and Curatorial Program (ISCP), 2013.
“,” Spazio Morris,(with David Peppas), 2012.
“,” Journal of Aesthetics and Protest, 2011.
“,” Pulse Contemporary Art Fair, 2010.