A man with short, curly hair and facial stubble looks directly at the camera. Bookshelves filled with books are visible in the background.
Adam Saltsman
Associate Professor, Urban Studies Department and Executive Director, Urban Action Institute
Adam Saltsman
508-929-8629 asaltsman@worcester.edu
Adam's Office
S-129B
Office Hours:
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Areas of Expertise
Refugee and Migration StudiesBorder StudiesFeminist GeographyUrban Studies

Adam Saltsman is Associate Professor in the Department of Urban Studies and Executive Director of the Urban Action Institute at Worcester State University. His research and teaching explore the intersection of borders, mobility, and gender relations in the lives of people and communities dealing with displacement and exile. Adam’s 2022 book Border Humanitarians: Gendered Order and Insecurity on the Thai-Burmese Frontier (Syracuse U Press) follows the lives and work of Burmese activists who live in exile and respond to gender violence among the hundreds of thousands of migrants living and working precariously on the Thai border with Myanmar. Adam also works on participatory action research as well as other approaches that aim to democratize the practice of research. He has engaged in a number of collaborative projects with Worcester-based community organizations, including Making Worcester Home, which Adam created in 2018 and which amplifies the voices of youth from refugee backgrounds on the topic of urban belonging. Adam has also published on these topics in Geopolitics, the Journal of Refugee Studies, Refuge, and Gateways: International Journal of Community Research and Engagement. Adam has also worked with grassroots and international humanitarian and human rights NGOs in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and the United States.

2000-2004
Colby College
Cultural Anthropology
BA
2007-2009
Boston College
Sociology
MA
2009-2015
Boston College
Sociology
PhD
Courses Taught (selection)
UR193 - Social Justice in the City (First Year Seminar)
This course asks you what it means to be working for social change in the city, using climate justice as a focal point. We will explore a variety of social, political, and economic issues taking place in cities around the world and including here in Worcester and we will consider the ways that these intersect in terms of climate change and efforts to fight for climate justice.
3 credits
UR220 - Immigrant City
This course will explore the important role that immigrants have played in the development of our society, with a particular focus on our cities. We will discuss why and how people move, the forces that shape their opportunities and the constraints on their lives, and how a world increasingly defined by migration is changing everything. The course privileges immigrant voices in the telling of their own narratives of settlement, displacement, and mobility. In addition, the course deals with the complex relationship between identity, race, and immigration in the United States and the ways that this relationship has impacted the development of US cities.
3 credits
UR332 - Global Cities
This course will explore the interconnections between cities around the world, and how people and cities alike are tied to processes of globalization. We consider the various sets of relationships that link peoples, places, social movements, and urban spaces. In particular, we’ll look at what ideas of “global” and “local” mean in different places around the world, including here in Worcester. We’ll consider what this reveals about the global economy and its impact on urban life.
3 credits
UR320 - Power and Urban Insecurity
This class explores the ways in which inequalities along lines of race and ethnicity, social class, gender, nationality, disability, and other categories impact how we experience the city around us and where we stand in relation to these borders. We will privilege the voices of those who have often been marginalized in our society to consider how power, privilege, and inequality are part of our social institutions, including the education system, housing, public assistance, and the prison system. We’ll also pay attention to the ways that urban residents navigate such policies as part of their everyday struggle for survival and stability.
3 credits
UR347 - Refugees in American Society
This course assesses the place of refugees globally and in United States cities, historically and currently. We look at the experience of refugees in the US, relevant policies pertaining to this population, and the various popular debates circulating about refugee settlement and asylum in the US.
3 credits
NM/PAP/PM942 - Organizational Theory
Organizations are at the heart of life in modern society. From the hospitals where most of us were born to the nursing homes where many spend time as elders, organizations are the institutions with which we interact from the beginning to the end of the life cycle. But how do organizations work? And what factors determine an organization’s efficacy, or how it will change over time? Is it all about the structure of an organization (i.e. top-down), or about the individuals who work or otherwise interact with the organization (i.e. bottom-up)? Or is it about the external environmental factors that influence an organization? In this class, we’ll explore these questions and others to understand how we can be part of making organizations and our society better.
4 credits (graduate-level)

Publications

Border Humanitarians: Gendered Order and Insecurity on the Thai-Burmese Frontier
Producing and Embodying Humanitarian Borders: The Gendered Geopolitics of Responding to (and Preventing) Gender-based Violence among Burmese displaced in Thailand
When Consensus Falters, We Co-create: Attending to Power in a Practitioner/Scholar Partnership to Amplify Newcomer Belonging
Storytelling in Research with Refugees: On the Promise and Politics of Audibility and Visibility in Participatory Research in Contexts of Forced Migration