Global Utilities

 

AFRICAN RESEARCH INSTITUTE
Annual Report, 1991

Return to African Research Institute Home Page.

Major Activities:

Amongst the highlights of the year was the address to the University by Walter Sisulu, Deputy President of the African National Congress.

Mrs Albertina Sisulu, Deputy President of the ANC Women's League and Co-President of the United Democratic Front coalition, visited the University at the invitation of the Institute.

Other distinguished speakers included Cyril Ramaphosa, then General Secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers, the largest Black trade union in South Africa. He gave a luncheon address to a large audience of staff and students.

 

 

Mr Krish Mackerdhuj, President of the non-racial South African Cricket Board and Mr Mluleki George, President of the National Olympic and Sports Congress and a leading figure in the United Democratic Front of South Africa, also visited La Trobe University.

The Director and members of the Institute were invited by the Department of Foreign Affairs to informal discussions with Zola Zkweyiya, Constitutional Law Adviser to the African National Congress, and Dulla Omar, Director of the Community Law Centre, University of the Western Cape. Members of the Institute also met with Dr Pascoal Mocumbi, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Mozambique, during his visit to Australia in June.

In November, Dr Dorward, the Director, was invited to present a seminar at Parliament House on "Socio-Economic Factors and Regional Implications" as part of the Vital Issues Seminars; The Road to Democracy ?; Political Change in South Africa, organized by the Parliamentary Library, Canberra.

In December, Professor Shula Marks, Director of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London, gave the Speaker of the Year Address at the University Staff Club. Her paper was on "Divided Sisterhood; Class, Race and Gender in the South African Nursing Profession".

Professor Hideo Yamada, Professor of International Economic History, Yachiyo International University, Tokoyo, former President of the African Studies Association of Japan and former head of the Anti-Apartheid Association of Japan, visited the Institute.

Albertina Sisulu being introduced to Justice Richard McGarvie, Chancellor of La Trobe University. Others are Eddie Funde, ANC Representative in Australia, Walter Sisulu and Dr Dorward, Director of the African Research Institute.

 


Seminars:


Documentation of African Artefacts in Australia

Dr Dorward was awarded a major grant by theAustralian Research Council to compile a national registry of African artifacts in major collections in Australia. The aims of the project are to locate and identify African material culture in major public collections, with the intent of creating a national registry similar to that on Oceanic materials compiled over a decade ago with funding from UNESCO and subsequently published as Oceanic Cultural Property in Australia: A pilot survey of major public collections (Sydney: The Australian Museum, 1980) and Pacific Island and Australian Aboriginal Artifacts in Public Collections in the United States and Canada (UNESCO, 1985), compiled by Adrienne L. Kaeppler and Amy Ku'uleialoha Stillman.

A postgraduate student (Flinders University) is already engaged in research utilizing the preliminary information compiled under the African Artefact Documentation Project.


Other Activities:

Penny Andrews taught a course on Race and the Law; The South African Experience, while Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Maryland. A chapter by her on "Freedom from discrimination" appeared in M. Robertson, ed., Human Rights for South Africans (Oxford University Press, 1990). She also presented conference papers on `International Human Rights and International Solidarity: The South African experience" at the Conference on Youth Building the Future, University of Oslo, Norway, July 1991, `Some Thoughts about Law and Lawyering in the Transition period in South Africa" at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, D.C., February, 1991, and "Access to Justice in a Post Apartheid South Africa" at the Philadelphia Chapter of the National Bar Association, Philadelphia, PA, January 1991.

Dr Dorward was elected President of the African Studies Association of Australia and the Pacific (AFSAAP) , the major area studies professional organization in the region, during 1991.


Distinguished Visitors:

Return to African Research Institute Home Page.

Dr David Dorward, Director
African Research Institute

e-mail < D.Dorward@latrobe.edu.au >