Description: This informal Pre-Summer School Coffee Meet-Up aims to provide HDR students with a welcoming, low-pressure environment to connect and engage before the formal program begins. Scheduled for the morning of the first day, before the official summer School welcome session, the meet-up offers students an opportunity to meet peers, share experiences, and feel part of the broader ADM+S HDR community.

Proposed outcomes for participants:

• Foster early social connections among HDR students
• Encourage wellbeing by promoting a relaxed and supportive start to the Summer School
• Introduce a new practice of regular, informal HDR coffee mornings
• Provide a space for students to raise ideas, issues or suggestions for the HDR Committee in an accessible and collegial setting. Ultimately, this initiative aligns with the HDR Committee’s 2026 goal which is to strengthen community, inclusion, and wellbeing among HDR students within ADM+S.

Description: This 60-minute icebreaker workshop will explore common mental health challenges HDR students face, including burnout, isolation, imposter syndrome and managing uncertainty. The session aims to move beyond awareness, offering practical tools and strategies students can use to recognise early signs of strain, build sustainable coping habits and access support when needed. The workshop will include interactive activities focusing on building community within ADM+S and developing everyday wellbeing tools. The session will include opportunities for anonymous participation to help students engage safely and honestly, such as short polls, reflection exercises or responses to written prompts.

Proposed learning outcomes for participants:

• A clear understanding of common mental health pressures HDR candidates may experience throughout their study
• Familiarity with concrete, research-informed strategies for managing stress, motivation and wellbeing
• The ability to identify personal warning signs early and apply supportive practices that work for them
• Knowledge of where and how to seek appropriate professional and peer support (within ADM+S & externally)

Description: The workshop details experiments we have been conducting in augmenting ethnographic practices with computational tools. This includes the ‘Telescope bot’, a data consent tool that actively engages participants in the research towards more ethical, living ethnographic practice, and how we are using the application Obsidian to structure, annotate, and share research data for a multi-sided, large data volume ethnography. These innovations sit in the context of the ADM+S project on ‘Artificial Organisational Intelligence’, which is about making organisation-level knowledge machine-readable so that it may be accessible and legible to humans through AI.

Proposed learning outcomes for participants: Workshop attendees can expect to reflect on and possibly innovate their own qualitative research practices, as well as the future of ethnography.

No experience needed. Tools and yarn will be provided.
You are also welcome to bring your own tools and yarn if you have them.

Description: This workshop and panel will centre on critical industry methodologies. Critical industry methodologies, according to media scholar J.T. Caldwell, studies industry texts, interviews and even trade shows as a form of insider knowledge and theorising. In sum, this approach examines the moments where an industry gives an account of itself. The purpose of the workshop is to outline the philosophy behind the method, demonstrate the research questions and problems it can be applied to, and outline the of methods involved. Even further we seek to emphasise the strength and usefulness of such a method for a variety of ADMS interest areas. In general, we believe by critically examining the discourses and imaginaries of particular industries, researchers can develop a meaningful understanding of society and culture.

Proposed learning outcomes for participants:
By the end of the session, participants will:

• Have a broad understanding of critical industry approaches
• Gain an in-depth understanding of key methods within this approach, including: how to contact and interview professionals, how to systematically collect and analyse grey literature and archival materials, and how to write field notes for a tradeshow ethnography
• Gain key insights from researchers’ experiences across a range of disciplines including STS, cultural studies, Film and TV, and legal studies

Description: This workshop is intended to explore the possibillites of collaborating with the Centre for the Digital Child (an ARC CoE) to translate research to children, and to co-create outputs with children, for children. Children are often heavily impacted by digital technology and its governance – including in relation to social media, deepfakes, gaming, streaming platforms, AI, chatbots and other technologies. This workshop will introduce participants to the Centre for the Digital Child, and its work. It will present a case study of a current collaboration between ADM+S, Digital Child and QUT’s GenAI lab to create an interactive ‘explainer’ for children aged 6-10 about AI chatbot sycophancy. Participants will then spend the remaining hour of the workshop in a mini-hackathon, workshopping ideas on other artefacts, games, explainers and co-creation approaches to translate ADM+S research to children through collaboration with Digital Child.

Proposed learning outcomes for participants:
Participants will leave the workshop with a basic understanding of the work of our colleagues at Digial Child, the opportunities for collaboration with them, methods for developing research outputs for child audiences, and co-creation methods with children.

This activity aims to bring an introduction to Capoeira with a hands-on activity. Get ready to learn some Capoeira songs, play some percussion, do some basic Capoeira movements, and learn more about where Capoeira comes from and how is being currently practiced all around the globe. No previous experience nor musical/acrobatic skills are required (Capoeira is for everybody!). Capoeira (/kæpəʊˈeərə/) is an Afro-Brazilian cultural practice, an art form that involves sport, body expression, music, and tradition. Capoeira is a Tupi-Guarani word (same language as for “jacaranda” or “açaí”), which in Portuguese means “mato cortado” (in English, “cut bush”). Capoeira promotes mutual respect and inclusion between diverse individuals and communities, as well as the memory of resistance to historical oppression. Since 2014, the “roda de Capoeira” (Capoeira circula) has been inscribed on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO.

Note to delegates: It is recommended to bring a water bottle, a towel, and comfortable clothes/sportswear.