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‚Academic Kindness‘ – a co-creative workshop

‚Academic Kindness‘ is sometimes reduced to a friendly way of dealing with each other in research and teaching contexts: to communicate appreciatively, practice constructive criticism and gratefulness. However, these individual practices of kindness are only one piece of the whole puzzle of ‘academic kindness’.

In this workshop we will reflect our own positionality and responsibilities in our academic career and how they can affect the way we see structural and systemic inequities. Who has enough power and resources to ask uncomfortable questions in academia? Who can afford to say ‘no’ to academic care-work? We want to use these perspectives to co-creatively work on solutions, how we can implement academic kind behavior in our daily work, without ignoring the bigger systemic considerations.

How can we practice academic kindness within a research group and hopefully create positive ripple effects into our organisations and the academic system as a whole?

The workshop will take place on June 18th, from 10-12 for members of the ComAI research group.

Short bio of Dr. Anita Thaler

Dr. Anita Thaler is a science, technology and society (STS) researcher, heads the research unit “Gender, Science and Technology” at IFZ in Graz, Austria and leads the working group Queer STS. She is also a consultant working on change processes with technology and research focused organisations.

Thaler is currently conducting research in the fields of biodiversity, medical technology and artificial intelligence, including an approach to diversity-sensitive, human-centered technology development. In 2022 she published with her colleague Daniela Jauk-Ajamie the online journal “Queer-Feminist STS Forum” on „Academic Kindness“.