Sydney Centre for Healthy Societies

New article! In this interdisciplinary piece, @jiannitien.bsky.social @katherinekenny.bsky.social @alexbroom.bsky.social Alice Motion & @bartlettquantum.bsky.social explore the ethical and social dimensions of nanotechnology innovation.

Find the full article here: bit.ly/464M1zR

@sydney.edu.au

Will an AI Robot Take Care of You in Old Age? AI Robots may be just the help older adults and their caretakers need. Just don't expect them to be cute little humanoids — yet.

Will Robots take care of you in Old Age?@barbaraneves.bsky.social, co-lead of our AI Social Science Theme, was recently interviewed for this piece on AI companions in Old Age. Follow the link below to read the full article.

www.kiplinger.com/retirement/h...

YouTube video by The Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, The University of Sydney The Long-Term Impacts of Childhood Immigration Detention: Dr Michelle Peterie

What are the long-term impacts of childhood immigration detention? This new study led by @michpeterie.bsky.social, senior research fellow at The Sydney Centre for Healthy Societies @sydney.edu.au is trying to find out youtu.be/r3sUeHLyMKw?...

Congratulations to the co-leads of our Race and Biohumanities Theme, Nadine Ehlers, Anthony Ryan Hatch, Amade M'charek and Anne Pollock, on their new book!

You can read more on this web page: z.umn.edu/18996

And use the discount code MN92810 for 30% off when purchased through the above website.

In this new article, Shiva Chandra, @alexbroom.bsky.social, @katherinekenny.bsky.social, @michpeterie.bsky.social and co-authors explore contemporary GBTQ+ safe sex practices, and what they mean in the context of antibiotic resistant STIs.

You can read the full piece here: bit.ly/4msCTNb

Dying as a Collective Encounter: Relationality and Affect at the End of Life The end of life is replete with relational complexities. Yet, despite the work of humanities and social science scholars in the field of death and dying, our final days and weeks are still often fram...

New article in Sociology of Health & Illness on death and dying as a collective encounter "replete with relational complexities". Follow the link below to read the full piece. @alexbroom.bsky.social @katherinekenny.bsky.social @henriettabyrne.bsky.social

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

A huge welcome to Postdoc Zoe Hogan who works with @michpeterie.bsky.social on an ARC Linkage Project about the long-term impacts of immigration detention in the lives of people who were detained as children.

You can read more about Zoe's work incl. her arts-based research here: bit.ly/43j0BTd

Tensions of time at the end (of life) Perhaps the most valuable asset in our cultural imaginary is time. Yet, this notion of time-as-asset intensifies, is contested, and is often derailed …

In this new open access article, @alexbroom.bsky.social @katherinekenny.bsky.social, Nadine Ehlers, @henriettabyrne.bsky.social and Phillip Good explore "nuanced accounts of dying-in-time", highlighting tensions and vitalities of time at the end of life.

Read the full article here: bit.ly/43on0QJ

Resisting AI hyper-optimism: Why the Paris AI summit should have us all concerned - ABC Religion & Ethics Over the last two years, AI summits held in the UK and South Korea focused on safety and the need for guardrails in the development of this powerful technology — but this year’s summit in Paris gave w...

New ABC opinion piece by Research Fellows @barbaraneves.bsky.social and Geoffrey Mead on resisting AI hyper optimism is out! This piece coincides with the launch of our newest Research Theme on 'AI Social Science', led by Barbara Barbosa Neves and Kalervo Gulson.

www.abc.net.au/religion/res...

We're looking for a part-time Research Fellow in Sociology to join the team, working with @leahmouse.bsky.social on her research program on migration, im/mobility and belonging. Full details bit.ly/4iAohs3

Great to see this new paper from the Sydney Centre for Healthy Societies team (part of our research program on #AntiMicrobialResistance #AMR) doi.org/10.1177/0162...

It was such a pleasure to host colleagues from King's College London for our joint public colloquium on 'The State of Racialised Health'. Thank you to all who presented their work, attended the colloquium, and engaged so deeply with the sessions.

Just a start - but a great group of USYD colleagues!

cc: @sssharc.bsky.social
@healthy-societies.bsky.social
@sydneyuni.bsky.social
@usyd-sace.bsky.social
@seisydney.bsky.social
@sydneypolicylab.bsky.social

#auspol

go.bsky.app/QBkrm6E

Read the story here: www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/immigra...

One of our projects: The Forgotten Children, Ten Years On, is featured in today’s Saturday Paper. Led by @michpeterie.bsky.social in partnership with the Australian Human Rights Commission, the project investigates how detention shapes children’s lives after their release.

I made this starter pack of researchers affiliated with the Sydney Centre for Healthy Societies at @sydneyuni.bsky.social. It's a boutique list (for now) - let me know if you think you should be included and you're not!

Sydney Centre for Healthy Societies Join the conversation

Would you like to stay in touch with the work of the Sydney Centre for Healthy Societies at The University of Sydney? Here is a starter pack of researchers affiliated with @healthy-societies.bsky.social: go.bsky.app/SBh8kqK #AcademicSky

The CFP for #AusSTS2025 is now open! This year's theme is 📡SIGNALS AND NOISES📡 and will be hosted in Naarm/Melbourne, 9 - 11 July

Deadline for proposals: 14 March

Shout out to co-convenors @carinatruyts.bsky.social and @blueskychris.bsky.social

Looking forward to reading these!

It was a pleasure to co-edit this Special Issue with Katie Kenny, @michpeterie.bsky.social, Alex Broom & @bprainsack.bsky.social and to work with all the authors including @spqueensland.bsky.social & lots of people not yet on Bluesky!

@sociologyaustralia.bsky.social @healthy-societies.bsky.social

(Screenshot) In this special issue of The Journal of Sociology, we take various social tensions the COVID-19 pandemic brought out of the cultural shadows as impetus to centre the future as a key orientation for contemporary sociological scholarship. Mobilising attention to the different forms of temporal dis/order that have become intensified in recent years, we seek to develop a more explicit understanding of how the future features prominently, if often subtly, across all aspects of social life. In naming this special issue ‘Future/Tense: A Sociology of Temporal Dis/Order’, we refer to the troubles and tensions that the future can bring forth. We also evoke the ways the future can both structure and dissolve our individual and collective hopes, fears and plans for what might happen to us, and the world, tomorrow, next year and/or for generations to come. Additionally, we bring to the fore of analysis the ways that both hope and fear surrounding the future can limit – or, indeed, be deployed to limit – our imaginaries in the present, including our individual and collective capacity to conceive of alternative and emancipatory futures, beyond various capitalist, colonialist and heteronormative pasts. We are fortunate to include contributions from authors across Australia, the UK, Europe and China that address topics ranging from the seemingly mundane day-to-day activities of living during the pandemic, to questions of mortality, mobility, climate collapse and space colonisation. The contributions are united by their critical attention to the (frequently overlooked) temporal tensions that lie at the heart of many of the key social challenges we confront in the contemporary historical moment.

In naming this special issue ‘Future/Tense: A Sociology of Temporal Dis/Order’, we evoke the troubles & tensions the future can bring, and the ways the future can structure & dissolve our individual & collective hopes, fears & plans for us, the world, and generations to come. doi.org/10.1177/1440...

Great to see this Journal of Sociology Special Issue out in the world. Edited by @healthy-societies.bsky.social researchers Katherine Kenny, @alexbroom.bsky.social, @michpeterie.bsky.social, @leahmouse.bsky.social & @bprainsack.bsky.social. Read the introductory essay here doi.org/10.1177/1440...

Imogen is one of the fantastic PhD students we get to work with @healthy-societies.bsky.social and I'm so pleased her excellent work is getting out there in the world. If you're interested in young people's experiences of #chronicillness, her work is definitely worth a look.

Congratulations to @michpeterie.bsky.social and Katherine Kenny for their recent academic promotions! Katie and Michelle are invaluable members of our team at the Sydney Centre for Healthy Societies and of the broader University community. Congrats Katie and Michelle!

New article by Centre team members Shiva Chandra, Alex Broom, @michpeterie.bsky.social, Katherine Kenny and co-authors on the complexities of addressing antibiotic resistant STIs across scales and contexts, and the connections between them.

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Sociology of Health & Illness Call for Abstracts – Algorithms in Health and Medicine: Sociological Inquiries into Current Disruptions and Future Imaginaries This special issue aims to expand the sociological theorising of digital transformations in health care and medicine, focusing specifically on algorithmic (including AI and data-driven) technologies. We seek papers that will address increasingly important, and yet still emergent, matters of concern in the provision of healthcare and medicine and imaginaries of their futures. It is highly significant because advances in processing power and big data gathered through miniaturised sensors, advanced robotics, chatbots, and the Internet of Things, are contributing to an expansive range of algorithmic capabilities. Trained from big datasets, deep learning algorithms can recognise patterns and detect clinically relevant features in imaging data beyond what can be perceived by the human eye. In this way, algorithms have become important diagnostic agents in radiology, oncology, and reproductive medicine. Precision medicine is being rolled out with enormous investments in many countries, whereby algorithmic capabilities provide the basis for interpreting the patient’s genetic makeup to predict or diagnose diseases (such as cancer) and determine appropriate treatments. Through natural language processing capabilities, algorithms are being employed as conversational agents and increasingly utilised in therapeutic support for patients with depression and anxiety. For example, the Woebot app, operating on the principles and practices of cognitive behavioural therapy, walks users through a series of questions to understand their mental health problems and provide them with coping strategies. Algorithms are also beginning to understand context and, thereby, can adapt the interface of electronic health records to help clinicians focus on information relevant for the specific patient. The field of algorithmic medicine is rapidly expanding towards new areas such as examining facial micro-expressions to detect pain among people with dementia and neurological problems, mining genome data to identify severity risk of COVID infection, and the provision of the artificial pancreas to automate insulin dispensary in diabetes care.

Call for Abstracts (DL 6 January 2025)

Sociology of Health and Illness Special Issue on:

Algorithms in Health and Medicine: Sociological Inquiries into Current Disruptions and Future Imaginaries

Editors: B. Marent, F. Henwood, A. Petersen, B.B. Neves

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/page/journal...

A group photo of researchers posing in front of a slide presentation that reads: Work in progress presentation.. USYD-NUS-SJTU-SDG Project Futures of Care Workers.

A female researcher (Leah Williams Veazey) standing at a lectern, to the side of a large presentation slide (in University of Sydney template) that reads: Future-proofing Australia's Care Economy.

A wonderful way to round out the year - presenting my work in progress to the USYD-NUS-SJTU SDG Futures of Care Workers Project team. Thanks to Bow Wu for the invitation! It was fabulous to meet NUS scholars Jung-Joo Lee & Janghee Cho and all the smart PhD students in the Affective Interactions lab.

Screenshot of a journal article published in the Sociology of Health and Illness. The title reads "Navigating the Limits of Diagnosis: Young Adults' Experiences of Chronic Living." Authors: Imogen Harper, Katherine Kenny, Alex Broom.

Great to see this new paper young adults' experiences with chronic illness, led by @healthy-societies.bsky.social PhD student Imogen Harper. It explores the role and limits of diagnosis in young adults' experiences of chronic living.
Read the full article here: doi.org/10.1111/1467...

Navigating the Limits of Diagnosis: Young Adults' Experiences of Chronic Living Young adults living with chronic illness often experience considerable uncertainty across the emotional, cultural and medical spheres of their everyday lives. The process of seeking, receiving and re....

This new publication by Imogen Harper, Katherine Kenny and Alex Broom explores the work of navigating the shortcomings of diagnosis for young adults living with chronic illness. Read the full article here: bit.ly/49hWNEo

New publication led by Shiva Chandra on sampling and recruitment of LGBTQ+ populations in health research. The article investigates the potential of sampling populations based on practices, as opposed to exclusively based on identities. Read more here: bit.ly/3ZoYjkv