8-14 September 2025

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Informal Sport and the Urban Commons

Macquarie University 25 Wally's Walk, North Ryde

Visit the Arts Precinct at Macquarie University during this year's 2023 Social Sciences Week for a special preview of research findings from a visual ethnography project, Informal Sport and the Urban Commons, exploring the role that informal sport plays in facilitating social inclusion in the global city. Between September 5 to 8, the Theatrette at the Intercultural Foyer located inside the Arts Precinct will come to life with video interviews and documentary photography taken with temporary migrant workers in Singapore who share stories about the significance of informal sport in their everyday lives. Informal Sport and the Urban Commons is a visual ethnography that aims to provoke reflection on the intersection between leisure practices, migrant place-making, and the right to the city. Event details: Cost: FREE Date: September 5 to 8 Location: Theatrette, Intercultural Foyer Level 2, 25 Wally’s Walk, Macquarie University Drop in to meet and chat with the project team on September 5, 12pm to 3pm Project team Professor Amanda Wise (Macquarie University) A/Professor Selvaraj Velayutham (Macquarie University) Dr Kristine Aquino (University of Technology Sydney) James Loganathan (University of Technology Sydney) Project funded by Australian Research Council (Discovery Project) Centre for Social Justice and Inclusion, University of Technology […]

FREE
Ongoing

Social Science Week TikTok Challenge

Virtual

Are you ready to tell the world about an important social issue and showcase your creativity? Swinburne’s high school student TikTok challenge aims to showcase the social issues that are important to young people and highlight the role that technology plays in our everyday lives. Whether you're interested in sociology, history, Indigenous studies, political science, media studies, or any other social science discipline, this challenge is for you! The competition is open to all current Victorian high school students. The most engaging video will win $300, with $100 prizes for the most creative, and Swinburne student choice awards. Step 1: Create an engaging and informative TikTok video that explains a social issue that is important to you, and how it is impacted by technology. Make sure your video is captivating, concise, and visually appealing. You can use creative animations, text overlays, or any other TikTok features to enhance your content. Your video should aim to educate and entertain viewers, providing them with valuable insights and fostering curiosity about our technologically embedded social world.  Step 2: Include the hashtags #SSW2023 & #SwinSocialSciences in the caption of your TikTok video. Step 3: Follow and tag @SSW2023 and @SwinHASS in your video to ensure your entry is […]

Free

Scanning Adventure & Outdoor Therapy Education, Professionalism, and Practice

Virtual

This presentation will cover recent research from a team of international adventure therapy practitioners focused on pathways into adventure and outdoor therapy. The large scale study found interesting patterns and areas for future research and focus, which were put to the test over the past year as adventure therapy scholars travelled internationally to visit universities in attempts to bring adventure to higher education. Attendees will discuss implications for future adventure therapy education and professional development. Register your attendance here: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/scanning-adventure-therapy-education-professionalism-and-practice-tickets-695942662237?aff=oddtdtcreator

Free
Featured Featured

Making a Difference: How Does Social Change Happen?

Policymakers confront growing challenges in areas as diverse—and often interrelated—as climate change, social inequality, artificial intelligence, work, migration, declining biodiversity, and new threats to public health. Responses require changes or modifications to deeply entrenched social and economic structures. Consequently, reform attempts often generate conflict and resistance from those with a real or perceived interest in those structures. How can such conflict be managed to deliver urgently needed reforms? This question is central to social scientists, whose work is vital to both the implementation of effective policy, and to understanding the societal implications of policy choices. A panel of six leading social scientists will analyse foundations and strategies of policy change in their areas of expertise—including some of the biggest, most difficult and pressing global and national challenges. This panel will highlight the breadth, diversity, and interrelationships within and between, social scientific and other disciplines, and their central importance to addressing these challenges. Each panellist will address three thematic questions: What is the central conflict or problem inherent to their research topic? How can this be managed or overcome? What skills or insights enable social science to make a difference to public policy—and debate thereof—in their research field? Panel presentations will […]

Marg Rogers: winner of the 2022 CHASS Distinctive Works Prize

Virtual

CHASS President in conversation with Marg Rogers, one of the 2022 CHASS Distinctive Works Prize winners: Dr Marg Rogers is a Senior Lecturer in the Early Childhood Education team within the School of Education at the University of New England. Marg researches marginalised voices within families and education especially in regional, rural and remote communities. Specifically, she researches ways to support the wellbeing of military, first responder and remote worker families and early childhood educators. Marg is a Postdoctoral Fellow within the Commonwealth Funded Manna Institute that builds place-based research capacity to improve mental health in regional, rural, and remote Australia. Building Research-based Co-designed and Co-created Supports to Improve the Wellbeing of Young Children from Service Families Australia has over 650,000 First Responders, plus volunteers attending to more extreme and frequent climate emergencies, terrorism, and health emergencies. Additionally, Australia has 60,000 full time Defence personnel and over 496,000 Veterans. The children of these service personnel are affected by the stressors of service family life, including frequent and prolonged parental deployments and frequent relocations. Additionally, the children can experience the secondary transfer of trauma if their parent has a service-related injury of mental health conditions. The literature reveals these children are […]

You, Me, and the Pale Blue Dot: Climate Politics in Australia and at the Global Level

Hybrid

Have you ever wondered what is the real connection between you – an individual – and global climate change? You are not alone. As students, educators, office managers, researchers, lab specialists, and other workers, it is common to be confused about often complicated climate-related policy language, science, geo-engineering, and various movements, even when we are committed to the green lifestyle and environmental values. If you often wonder what the connection is between the individual and global and how can we interpret and understand often convoluted climate-related language, science, and policy, join us for a roundtable on September 6th. We will discuss climate policymaking and politics in Australia and beyond and, more importantly, the panelists will share their personal experiences and reflections on the role of ordinary individuals and the global picture of climate change. In the indefinite universe, the “pale blue dot” might seem to be of no particular interest, but as Carl Sagan said: “for us, it is different; It is us. It is home.” Date: Wednesday 6 September Time: 11am-12pm Format: Hybrid Venue: Law Theatre G02 Panelists: Dr Dhanasree Jayaram, Manipal Department of Geopolitics and International Relations Saniya Karimova, UNSW Alumna, Master of Development Studies Dr Deborah Barros […]

Book Launch – A Theory of Housing Provision under Capitalism

HYBRID - Online and at RMIT Kaleide Theatre 360 Swanston Street, Lower Ground, Building 08, Melbourne

The Centre for Urban Research is pleased to host the launch of Mike Berry's new book A Theory of Housing Provision under Capitalism as part of Social Science Week 2023. The launch will feature a presentation by the author followed by a panel discussion with RMIT housing experts. About the book Housing is in the daily headlines as the governments struggle to respond to failures in rental and home ownership markets. The housing crisis has raised critical questions about the role of housing in capitalist societies. In his new book A Theory of Housing Provision under Capitalism, Professor Mike Berry offers the first coherent Marxist analysis of the central importance of housing in the social reproduction of capitalism as a whole. Berry argues that the circulation of capital and revenues though housing and the built environment helps explain how the capital-labour relation constrains housing outcomes while also being reproduced on an extended scale. He shows how housing is provided by the intervention of building, property and interest-bearing capital fractions; how the land question can be explained by a theory of urban land rent, drawing on Marx's categories of differential and monopoly rent; how housing is vital to the extended reproduction […]

Free

Developing research partnerships with schools

Virtual

A workshop for school staff and researchers, presented by The Australian Sociological Association (Sociology of Education Thematic Group) What kinds of social research is of benefit to schools? How can schools make room for research? How can researchers co-design projects with schools to achieve common goals? How can researchers manage institutional barriers, e.g. onerous approvals processes, financial constraints, and time constraints? Social scientists working on education have always worked productively with schools. However, that is becoming increasingly difficult because of the pressures facing both schools and the research sector. The aim of this workshop is to bring together researchers and school staff to share ideas and experiences, in order to increase understanding and create possibilities for new ways of working together. Participating researchers work on issues including: Educational inequality Cultural diversity and schooling Impacts of Covid on schooling Selective schools and educational segregation Transitions to post-school life Our panel includes: Cathy Wilton, Principal, Yennora Public School Sarah Loch, Research Director, Pymble Ladies College Kimberley Pressick-Kilborn, Research Director, Trinity Grammar College Eliza Buckley, Youth and Community Services Manager, 3 Bridges Community Centre Dr Quentin Maire, University of Melbourne

Free

Can AI do this job? Hear from our industry experts!

Virtual

Can Artificial Intelligence (AI) write a lesson plan for a new teacher? What about a script for a hit TV show? Can we use it for images, design, and more? This Swinburne-led panel brings together three experts from education, screenwriting, and design to take a closer look at AI-generated outputs. Join us for an online event where we analyse and discuss AI and its impact on our work in education, writing, and design. Mark your calendars for Wednesday 6 September 2023 at 3pm (Australian Eastern Standard Time) and don't miss this opportunity to gain valuable knowledge and engage in thought-provoking discussions. Discover how AI is impacting how we do our jobs. Our expert panellists will share their insights, experiences, and analysis of what AI can produce in their field. If you're curious about AI and its ability (and limitations) to work with us and for us, this event is for you! Our expert panel: Associate Professor Damien Lyons Damien Lyons has teaching experience from Foundation through to Year Six, most recently as a Teaching and Learning Coach. He has held a range of leadership positions within primary schools, provided professional development to teachers within Australia and internationally, and contributed to policy within […]

Free

Can AI do this job? Hear from our industry experts!

Virtual

Can Artificial Intelligence (AI) write a lesson plan for a new teacher? What about a script for a hit TV show? Can we use it for images, design, and more? This Swinburne-led panel brings together three experts from education, screenwriting, and design to take a closer look at AI-generated outputs. Join us for an online event where we analyse and discuss AI and its impact on our work in education, writing, and design. Mark your calendars for Wednesday 6 September 2023 at 3pm (Australian Eastern Standard Time) and don't miss this opportunity to gain valuable knowledge and engage in thought-provoking discussions. Discover how AI is impacting how we do our jobs. Our expert panellists will share their insights, experiences, and analysis of what AI can produce in their field. If you're curious about AI and its ability (and limitations) to work with us and for us, this event is for you! Our expert panel: Associate Professor Damien Lyons Damien Lyons has teaching experience from Foundation through to Year Six, most recently as a Teaching and Learning Coach. He has held a range of leadership positions within primary schools, provided professional development to teachers within Australia and internationally, and contributed to policy within […]

Free

Public Lecture: The Superrich, Digital Technologies and the Politics of Exit with Roger Burrows

Virtual

This lecture offers a critical examination of an ideology - one that has come to be known as Neoreaction (NRx) or, more ominously, The Dark Enlightenment - which has taken hold amongst an influential fraction of the global superrich who have made their money through investments in digital technologies. It is an ideology that holds that democracy is now a fetter of technological progress and needs to be replaced with a new political system that splits the world into a patchwork of competing territories (‘Gov-Corps’), each headed by a CEO or a monarch. Citizens would no longer have any ‘voice’ but would be free to ‘exit’ from any regime that they found to be unaligned with their preferences; there would be a free market in modes of governance. The paper examines the activities and investments of tech entrepreneurs such as Peter Thiel and Patri Friedman who are widely identified as prime movers in the development of NRx ideas. It also considers the influence of alt-right thinkers such as Nick Land and Curtis Yarvin who are often credited with providing a philosophical basis for the position. The lecture concludes that the ideology is one that operates largely without the traditional infrastructures […]

Free
Event Series Wealth And Giving In Australia: An Examination Of The Evidence And Policy Implications

Wealth And Giving In Australia: An Examination Of The Evidence And Policy Implications

The University of Western Australia, Business School Hackett Drive, Perth

This presentation from Professor Paul Flatau (Director, Centre for Social Impact, University of Western Australia) will examine trends in the distribution of income and wealth in Australia including by high net wealth and ultra-high net wealth individuals and philanthropic giving of Australians and the potential for giving to rise to achieve positive social impact. The presentation will explore the rate of tax-deductible donations in Australia, and giving among the wealthiest Australians. Overall, Australia is one of the world’s richest nations, and the wealthiest Australians are currently experiencing unprecedented growth in their fortunes. However, Australia’s giving record remains relatively low compared with other wealthy countries. There is untapped potential that exists to better fund the not-for-profit sector. The  presentation is organised by the Economic Society of Australia (Western Australia)

Free

Treaty! Promise, potential and pitfalls

Join us for this special event, featuring the Paul Bourke Award Winner for Early Career Research, Dr Harry Hobbs as he explores modern treaty-making between Indigenous peoples and governments in Australia. This event will add context to the upcoming referendum, and allow the audience to question whether Australia should go down the treaty path; a path that could lead to political settlements that empower Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and address the injustices at the heart of the Australian state. Please submit your questions prior to event at events@uts.edu.au Wed 6th Sep 2023, 5:30 pm - 7:00 pm AEST UTS Great Hall

16th Annual Wheelwright Lecture, ‘Not Going Away: First People and the Australian Economy’

Lecture Theatre 200, Social Sciences Building (A02), The University of Sydney, Science Road

The 16th Annual E.L. ‘Ted’ Wheelwright Memorial Lecture The annual E.L. ‘Ted’ Wheelwright Memorial Lecture is held to commemorate the pioneering role that Ted Wheelwright played in developing studies in Political Economy in Australia. Not Going Away: First People and the Australian Economy Speaker: Professor Heidi Norman Over the last 50 years there has commenced a land titling revolution. Indigenous peoples have recognised land interests over more than half the continent, nearly four million square kilometres, with more under claim. Estimates suggests that Indigenous peoples hold exclusive possession native title and fee simple to around 26% of Australia’s landmass. When non-exclusive native title is included, that number rises to 54% of the country covering National parks, conservation areas, and vast expanses of the continent. The Aboriginal land estate is critical in the response to climate change and the energy transition currently underway will transform land-use patterns across many parts of regional Australia. While the risk of exclusion for Indigenous peoples is significant, opportunities that will come with meaningful participation are enormous. My research shows that Indigenous land holders want to address climate change in ways that support their ambitions to generate prosperity and rebuild nations and economies that align with Indigenous values. […]

Women on Water (WOW): Good Food, Community, Connectivity, and Planning for Fun in Adventure Programming

Virtual

Fresh moving water, good food, laughter, and a sense of community. This is exactly what Jen Rees brings to her work with Flow Outdoors. In this interactive presentation, Jen’s friends Doug Moczynski and Will Dobud facilitate a Q&A with Jen to learn more about her approach to fostering connectivity with the adventurous women she gets to paddle with. Attendees are provided ideas for adventure-based planning that gets the most from individuals and groups in wild places. Register your attendance here: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/women-on-water-wow-with-jen-rees-founder-of-flow-outdoors-tickets-695948579937?aff=oddtdtcreator

Free
Featured Featured

to follow the Old Ways

RMIT Design Hub Gallery Building 100, Victoria Street, Carlton, Melbourne

'digging up my place of birth … digging up our Mother Earth … now she has been cut … now she has bled … red...' – Robbie Bundle, 2014 Universal Ark Album 'to follow the Old Way' panel will explore the inextricable connectivity between Aboriginal belonging in Country and Ancestral obligation and responsibility in the stewardship of Country, comprising moornong meerreeng (sky country), meerteeyt meerreeng (sea country) ba meerreeng meerreeng (earth country). The Panel contributors will speak to the resonance of interconnected Being, seeking healing for all Kin. It is an appeal to humanity and a gentle reminder that Indigenous patience has ‘worn thin’ and that listening and learning from Aboriginal Ancestral, cultural and ecological knowledges is imperative in this time of climate and ecological crisis. It is an introduction to potentiality, a possible global manifesto, an ontological journey of discovery towards an urgent planetary commons – in perpetuity, in futurity, for our children’s children’s children. Image: Daryn McKenny – Whale Carer & Aboriginal Drone Pilot Please let us know of any accessibility requirements in your booking.

Free

Navigating Two Worlds

Io Myers Studio, Esme Timbery Creative Practice Lab, UNSW Kensington UNSW Sydney, High St, Kensington, Sydney

Lamisse Hamouda | Lana Tatour In 2018 Egyptian-Australian writer Lamisse Hamouda had moved to Egypt to study when her life was turned upside down. Her father Hazem, on his way to visit her, was arrested by authorities, accused of sympathising with a terrorist organisation, and sent to prison without charge or evidence for 433 days. In an intimate evening of conversation with UNSW Middle East expert Lana Tatour, delve into Lamisse's new book The Shape of Dust, and her experience fighting against the Egyptian prison system as an Australian citizen. Together they’ll unpack what support the Australian Government provides dual citizens abroad (surprisingly minimal), what cultural identity means for individuals stuck between two cultural worlds, and how trauma can fragment memory and bring unexpected challenges to the writing process. This event is presented by the UNSW Centre for Ideas. 

Free

Why our young adults are getting a raw deal | The Peer Revue Improv Comedy

Theory Bar Ground Floor/19-23 Meyers Pl, Melbourne

Smart meets silly in The Peer Revue, where cutting-edge research fuels improv comedy. Each show features a different superstar researcher who tells stories from their research, which inspire a cast of talented improvisers to create brand new, unscripted comedy. The Peer Revue is a hilarious celebration of social sciences and all things academic. You’ll laugh, and you also might learn. Why our young adults are getting a raw deal | The Peer Revue Improv Comedy If you listen to the media, young people should just pull their socks up and cut back on the avocado toast and oat milk lattes. Then they'll be able to afford the three-bedroom suburban dream, just like their parents’ generation. Is any of this true, or have the ‘Millennials’ and ‘Gen Z’ been sold a lie? Find out with our guest Professor Dan Woodman. Dan is a sociologist of young adulthood and generations at the University of Melbourne, President of the Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, and an Editor in Chief of the Journal of Youth Studies. This special Peer Revue show is part of Social Sciences Week and presented in conjunction with the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia.

$24