Overview
Adam is a sociocultural anthropologist who works on issues of political economy (and ecology), environmental anthropology, and the anthropology of development. He is especially interested in persistent social conflicts located in the relations between people, nature, and capital. His doctoral research probes the antinomies between wilderness preservation and economic development in New York State’s Adirondack Park -- the largest protected area in the continental United States.
Adam recently completed his fieldwork and is currently writing up. His dissertation examines the fundamental roles that specific temporal orientations and ideas about time play in Adirondack land-use conflicts, and how social actors in Adirondack contexts bind together concepts of morality and temporality. Using archival research, ethnographic fieldwork, and digital ethnography, he traces how these temporal-moral frameworks are linked to long-standing political-economic tensions in the region.