We access the world through storytelling. The most complex social and political challenges of the contemporary era are mediated for consumption through media, discourse, and narrative. In this panel discussion, University of Sydney experts on media and political discourse analysis engage questions of climate crisis, racism in mainstream politics in Australia, misogyny and the “incel” movement, and international conflict, connecting the representation of these pressing social and political problems with governance efforts to reduce or minimise their impact. Media, discourse, and narrative approaches to governance focus on how social and political realities become known – and how these realities can therefore be acted upon and perhaps even changed.

Panelists:

Chair: Professor Laura Shepherd

Heela Popal is a final year PhD candidate at the department of Government and International Relations (GIR) researching racism in Australian political discourse.

Julia Jacobson is an honours student in the department of Government and International Relations researching Australian media and political discourse on incels (an online misogynistic hate group).

Sian Lucy Perry is a PhD Student in the Gov and IR department. For her thesis research, she is conducting a narrative study of U.S presidential climate change discourse.

Jake Lynch is Associate Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies in the Discipline of Sociology and Criminology. He is researching the reporting of conflict by Afghan media under the internationally-supported government at the time of the intra-Afghan peace talks in 2020.

Discourse In Governance Issues Of Climate, Conflict, Racism And Misogyny

‘Vulnerability’ is typically imagined as a property of individuals, groups or locales. But vulnerability is not something that is inherent to bodies – be they physical, social or geographic. Rather, it is produced through a wide variety of social process that make some bodies more or less vulnerable than others.

Vulnerability is patterned in ways that are historically and socially specific, produced at the nexus of markets, economics, politics and cultures, and constantly (re)made through decisions, discourses and daily practices. Viewed in this way, vulnerability might be individually embodied, but it is also deeply relational and unavoidably socially-structured.

This panel - hosted by The SCHS in conjunction with TASA and SSPS - will bring together leading social scientists working across a wide range of empirical contexts to discuss how vulnerability is produced in ways that compromise the wellbeing of some over others and further entrench forms of suffering and injustice. Tracing vulnerability as it is produced at the fault-lines of contemporary policy, economic organization, and governance across scales from the microscopic to the planetary, it will explore how vulnerable bodies are made, and might be unmade, in service of healthier and fairer societies now and into the future.

Featuring:

Dr Katherine Kenny, Sydney Centre for Healthy Societies, The University of Sydney

Prof Alex Broom – Sydney Centre for Healthy Societies, The University of Sydney

A/Prof Dinesh Wadiwel – School of Social and Political Sciences, The University of Sydney

Dr Julia Cook – Newcastle Youth Studies Centre, The University of Newcastle

Dr Michelle Peterie – Sydney Centre for Healthy Societies, The University of Sydney

Dr Malini Sur – Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University

Dr Blanche Verlie – Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University

Vulnerable Bodies And The Un/making Of Wellbeing

In 2015, the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provided a comprehensive plan for a sustainable world by 2030. However, progress is not happening fast enough. There is an urgent need to increase our collective abilities to face and effectively work with complex challenges. The Inner Development Goals (IDGs) framework was developed as a complementary framework to the UN’s ‘Transforming Our World - 2030 SDGs, to develop people’s inner capacity to deal with the increasingly complex challenges to building a sustainable world by 2030 and beyond. 

The Australia IDGs initiative brought special guests. In activating and being nourished by reciprocity with Country, paying respects to ancestral and contemporary Earth Stewards the world over, alalouie Alana Marsh, a Meriam women joining us from Kulin Nation, Victoria, e-connected us in Regenerative System Re-setting and Wayapa Wuurrk practice. The Keynote speaker, Thomas Hübl, PhD, Founder of the Academy of Inner Science, Co-Founder of the Pocket Project: Restoring a Fragmented World, and Visiting scholar at Harvard Medical School’s Wyss Institute, shared with us his wisdom about what we as individuals and as a collective need to do to create a sustainable society. He shared the importance of a trauma-informed society on many levels to create systemic awareness to integrate what we were born to. Director of Partnerships and Communications from IDGs Global Leadership, Daniel Hires, shared with us the IDGs framework and how the five critical dimensions (Being, Thinking, Relating, Collaborating, and Acting) can support the SDGs. Dr Fredrik Lindencrona, IDGs Global Head of Research Co-Creation, explained how this translates from research and policy. He leaves us with the question, how might we build and think differently when leading organisations? The event was captured live in Scribing (Photo) by Strategic Designer and Educator Vivien Sung who captured the collective knowledge shared throughout the session. In hosting the hybrid gathering, IDGs Higher Education Circle Lead and Lecturer Dr Vivianna Rodriguez Carreon brings together in person Australian-based individual founders and organisations contextualising IDGs in Australia to co-create the IDGs Australia Hub.

This hybrid event was hosted by PACS6921 Peace of Mind and Peace in the World Unit of Study coordinator, Dr Vivianna Rodriguez Carreon, at the University of Sydney, in collaboration with Australian-based individuals and organisations contextualising IDGs in Australia. We thank collaborators for co-designing and co-facilitating the session:

Alan Taylor, 3P Impact Leadership and Team Coach, Facilitator, Sustainability Advocate; Alice Howard-Vyse, Humanise This, Systems and Strategic Designer and Regen Sydney, Convenor; Cherry Ward, Sustainability and Leadership Development Specialist, Bluebird Leadership Founder; Helen Lawson Williams, Anamorphic Digital Co-Founder; Jax Wechsler, Strategic Designer, Educator, Founder of Social Design Sydney; Jennifer Barker-Burns, We Evolve Coach and Facilitator; Wendy Harper, Co-Founder P-Lab, ND- Neuro Change Institute, and Founder of the Agency of Women.

This is an edited version of the three-hour seminar and workshop. If you feel you need help due to the topics discussed in this recording, please reach out for help and support your well-being. 

1:00 Acknowledgement to Country, Introduction to Alana Marsh
2:15 Alana Marsh Wayapa practice, The Creator
8:00 Introduction to Thomas Hübl and Daniel Hires
10:15 Thomas Hübl keynote
27:45 Daniel Hires dialogue with Thomas Hübl
62:45 Daniel Hires presentation
74:15 Jax Wechsler presenting Alana Marsh
74:30 Alana Marsh Wayapa practice, The Child
82:00 Introduction to Fredrik Lindencrona 
84:00 Fredrik Lindrencona presentation
91:30 Dialogue Vivianna Rodriguez Carreon and Fredrik Lindencrona

In your opinion, what are the abilities, qualities, or skills we need to develop to reach the UN's Sustainability Goals (SDGs)?
https://bit.ly/IDGs2030

Inner Development and Sustainability: The Australia Inner Development Goals initiative

In this keynote address Aung Myo Min will discuss the movement for democracy in Myanmar and the role of the National Unity Government of Myanmar in laying the path for the country’s transition to a liberal democracy, with a separation of powers and guarantees of fundamental rights and freedoms.

Dr Susan Banki, whose research focuses on human rights and social justice in the Asia-Pacific region, met with Minister Aung Myo Min when conducting research on the Thailand-Myanmar border in the mid-2000s. In the Q & A, Dr Banki will ask the Minister questions about his role as an activist over many years, his work as an LGBTQI advocate, and the promise and future of Myanmar in light of the 2021 coup.

Dr Susan Banki will introduce the event and chair the Q&A.

Professor Rodney Smith, Interim Head of School, will conduct the award ceremony.

Aung Myo Min is the Union Minister for Human Rights in the cabinet of the National Unity Government of Myanmar. He was one of Myanmar’s prominent human rights advocates before he joined the NUG and was a youth leader in the 1988 democracy uprising. Aung Myo Min lived in exile for 23 years and continued working on human rights issues in Myanmar, particularly on marginalized people. He graduated with a Master’s degree in human rights from Columbia University, New York, in 1993. He has received eight human rights awards for his outstanding human rights work including the Schuman Human Rights Award in 2017.

The Sydney Peace Foundation’s Gold Medal for Human Rights is a prestigious acknowledgement of an individual’s tireless commitment to human rights. The Sydney Peace Foundation, founded in 1998, advocates for peace with justice, recognising that to achieve true and lasting peace, we must, beyond ending war and violent conflict, address deep injustices and structural inequality through systemic reform.

Is peace and democracy possible in Myanmar?

Tune into our Social Sciences Week events to hear from our expert speakers discussing pressing social, economic, and political challenges and how we navigate social and judicial inequality, environmental impact and political agendas.

Lobbying And Agenda Setting: Whose Interests are Served, How, and Why?

The Palestinian Catastrophe

Wheelwright Lecture - 'Not Going Away: First People and the Australian Economy'

Civil Society, the African Union and Peace with Justice on the African Continent

Unsettling the Dominant Discourse and Practice of Transitional Justice

The forthcoming announcement for a Referendum on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to Parliament, calls for all Australians to be informed about the background and implications of this most crucial decision to recognise First Nations people in the Australian Constitution.

To contribute to that conversation, this panel brings together Indigenous and non-Indigenous academics and students, to provide information and share ideas about the background, process and implications of the proposed Voice to Parliament. Panellists will be addressing this from different perspectives, including from a constitutional law, politics, and social justice perspectives. The panel discussion will be followed by a Q&A session. 
Our panellists:
•	Professor Rodney Smith (School of Social and Political Sciences, FASS) His expertise is in Australian politics, elections and the parliament, and the referendum as a political process. 
•	Dr Lynsey Blayden (Sydney Law School) Her areas of research interest span constitutional and administrative law and include Australian constitutional, political and institutional history, constitutional theory and the role of institutions in protecting and enhancing individual, social and political wellbeing.
•	Benjamin Narooz McGrory (School of Social and Political Sciences, FASS) Benjamin is First Nations Bachelor of Arts student currently serving as the SRC’s Indigenous Officer.
•	Amy Davidson (School of Education and Social Work, FASS) Amy is a First Nations doctoral student, developing a best practices framework for conducting community-led research. Amy was previously a student representative of Indigenous Studies.

A Multi-perspective Conversation on the Voice to Parliament

Economist and former Greek finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, speaks at the University of Sydney. Yanis discusses his new book, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, and its implications for Australia as the world enters a ‘New Cold War’ of geopolitical tensions between the United States and China.

Varoufakis argues that big tech has replaced capitalism’s twin pillars—markets and profit—with its platforms and rents. With every click and scroll, we labor like serfs to increase its power. This is Technofeudalism: the new power that is reshaping our lives and the world, and the greatest current threat to the liberal individual, to our efforts to avert climate catastrophe—and to democracy itself.

Drawing on stories from Greek myth and pop culture, from Homer to Mad Men, Varoufakis will explain this revolutionary transformation: how it enslaves our minds, how it rewrites the rules of global power, and, ultimately, what it will take overthrow it.

Australia & The New Cold War In The Age Of Technofeudalism

This special event was hosted by the School of Social and Political Sciences and supported by the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, at the University of Sydney on 10 April, 2024.

Speaker: Professor Mike Savage, London School of Economics

Summary: Over the past decade, escalating wealth inequalities have become apparent across the globe. It is increasingly evident that this is driven not by anonymous forces like “globalization” or “capital”, but by elites who enjoy disproportionate power and influence. This lecture addresses the intellectual and political challenges posed by this trend. Most fundamentally, how should we define, measure, and track this wealth, given that its growth stems at least in part from elites’ ability to stay under public, scholarly, and regulatory radars? How does wealth inequality reinforce racial, gender and other divides, and how does it shape social mobility and life chances across numerous domains? And what strategies could effectively advance the growing public interest in taxing wealth as a means to address entrenched wealth inequalities? This lecture discusses how wealth accumulation is underwritten by legal devices such as the ‘non-domicile’ tax regime; shows the roots of this in British imperial history, and considers the prospects for tax justice.

Mike Savage is Martin White Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics. He has a longstanding interest in the social and historical sources of inequality, within and across nations. From 2015 to 2020 Mike was Director of the LSE’s International Inequalities Institute, and his most recent book is The Return of Inequality: Social Change and the Weight of the Past (Harvard University Press, 2021), praised by Thomas Piketty as a “major sociological contribution to the ongoing global debate on inequality and the return of social class”.

The Racial Wealth Divide | Mike Savage, London School of Economics

From the Government and International Relations MA degree directors: Dr Harry Mayer, Dr Minran Lui, Prof Susan Park, and chaired by Dr Assel Mussagulova, get your questions answered about:
 
Masters of International Relations (MA-IR)
Masters of International Security (MInst)
Masters of Public Policy (MPP)

What units do we offer and where can it lead you?

Politics and International Relations: Prospects for Future Stability?

How can humans coexist with other species in ways that sustain life and promote an ethical future?
 
Social scientists offer critical insights into how our politics, economics and cultures effect the environment, and in turn, how environmental changes are impacting all aspects of our collective lives. By observing and analysing how different groups organise for change, social scientists also provide important insights into how we can better effect comprehensive political, social, economic and cultural transformation.
 
In this podcast we reflect on what it would mean for humans to reshape how we understand ourselves and our world, and how to live together with each other and beings other than humans in ways that might sustain life and promote an ethical future. 

Our panel of environmentally-oriented social scientists discuss how they seek to make a difference to the environmental crises unfolding around us, addressing COVID-19, capitalism, colonialism, BLM, environmental and climate justice movements in this podcast.

Timestamps
00:00 Introduction and Acknowledgement of Country – Danielle Celermajer
06:27 Industrial animal agriculture, environment and COVID-19: Thinking again about the place of animals in our food systems – Dinesh Wadiwel
18:20 Omnicide: Thinking the fires through the lens of multispecies justice - Danielle Celermajer
30:26 Where is the justice? - Christine Winter
41:15 Just adaptation - David Schlosberg 
53:57 Audience Q&A and discussion

Speakers
Dr Dinesh Wadiwel, Sociology and Social Policy, The University of Sydney
Professor Danielle Celermajer (Chair), Sociology and Social Policy, The University of Sydney
Dr Christine Winter, Government and International Relations, The University of Sydney
Professor David Schlosberg, Sydney Environment Institute and Government and International Relations

This podcast is part of Social Science Week Australia 2020. Find out more here: https://bit.ly/3fgfFpw

Social science through a multispecies lens

The School of Social and Political Sciences is home to one of the most successful academic groups in the world for research and teaching in the social sciences. From health security to economic policy, human rights and political participation, our work interprets and makes sense of societies, nation states and people.

School of Social and Political Sciences

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