Annual ReportAnnual ReportReturn to African Research Institute Home Page.
Executive Committee:Dr David Dorward (Director and Chair), Dr Sue Thomas (English), Prof Martin Chanock (Legal Studies), Eva Fisch (Library Representative), Derek Overton (Postgraduate Representative), Dr Elizabeth Dimock (ex-officio)
Members of the Institute:
- Dr Edith Bavin (School of Psychological Science); Dr Martin Chanock (Legal Studies); Dr David Dorward (History); Dr Nicola Stern (Archaeology); Dr Sue Thomas (English); Prof Philip Darby (Associate Member: Politics, University of Melbourne); Dr Elizabeth Dimock (Associate Member: History and Women's Studies); Teresa McMahon (Postygaduate: History); Derek Overton (Postgraduate: History); Ken Okugu (Postgraduate: Politics); Clare Rushman (Honours: History; Kivubiru Tabawebbula (Affiliate Member: South Australia Museum)
Summary of
Major Activities:
The Institute organised a conference on "Australia in Africa; Africans in Australia" in June 1998, bring together members of the corporate sector and representatives of various African community organisations, as well as academics and postgraduates from Australia, New Zealand, Africa, Europe and North America.
The Institute, in conjunction with the Faculty of Health Sciences and the School of Law and Legal Studies, mounted a three day training program for service providers on "Cultural Practices, Law and Reproductive Health: issues relating to Female Genital Mutilation" in October 1998. The program was held at the Cato Conference Centre in Elizabeth Street and attracted over 40 professions from the medical profession, and other services providers responsible under the Victorian legislation relating to the criminalization of female genital mutilation.
The Institute staff continued to provide briefings on African affairs and information to various officials and agencies, including:
Members of the Australian Diplomatic Corps, The Joint Services Staff College, Canberra, briefing for senior officers, Army, Navy and Air Force, from Australia, New Zealand, various nations of the Pacific, Southeast Asia and South Asia, as well as officers from Britain and the United States; The Department of immigration and Multicultural Affairs, Refugee Review Tribunal and Legal Advisory Services
and various Non-Government Agencies, including the Overseas Service Bureau, Community Aid Abroad, World Vision and the Australian Council for Overseas Aid.
The Institute continues to maintain and expand its website and helped developed a site for the African Studies Association of Australasia and the Pacific.
An Accredited Continuing Education Course for Service Provider, 25, 26, 27 October 1998
Sponsored by Human Services (Victoria),
in conjunction with LaTrobe University.
The African Research Institute was contracted by the Department of Human Services (Victoria) to mount a training program for service providers responsible under the Victorian legislation relating to Female Genital Mutilation. Under the Victorian legislation, Crimes (Female Genital Mutilation) Act 1996, Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is defined as:
(a) infibulation;
(b) excision or mutilation of the whole or a part of the clitoris;
(c) excision or mutilation of the whole or a part of the labia minora or labia majora;
(d) any procedure to narrow or close the viginal opening;
(e) the sealing or suturing together of the labia minora or labia majora;
(f) the removal of the clitoral hood.
The Act makes it an offence to perform FGM (section 32) or to take a person out of state for the purposes of going to perform FGM (section 33). Consent is no defence under sections 32 and 33.Similar legislation has been enacted in the other states and territories of Australia.
FGM is widespread in countries from which Australia has accepted refugees and recent migrants, including Egypt and the Horn of Africa. FGM is popularly associated with African cultures and Islam, though it is confined to neither. FGM is also found in the Middle East, Yemen, the United Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, and parts of Saudi Arabia, as well as the Indian sub-continent, Indonesia and Malaysia.
The program was designed to complement the community-focused educational program of the Victorian Department of Human Services. While the community education program focuses on the affected communities, particularly women and young girls who are at risk of, or have already been subject to, FGM, the LaTrobe University program targeted health and other professionals, as well as personnel of government departments, who work with the affected communities and are responsible under the Act.
In addition to mounting a three day training program, DrsDorward and Dimock produced an extensive (119pp) annotated bibliography on Female Circumcision and Related Genital Surgery as part of the resource kit provided to participants.
LaTrobe staff involved in the training program included:Drs Dorward and Dimock from the African Research Institute,
Dr Kerry Petersen from the School of Law and Legal Studies and
Elizabeth Brown from the Faculty of Health Sciences.
Outside lecturers included:
Melbourne AFSAAP Conference, June1998
The Conference was organized by the Institute on behalf of the Afrian Studies Assocation of Australasia and the Pacific (AFSAAP) at the Cato Conference Centre, Melbourne and was proceeded by a one-day postgraduate workshop for African Studies postgraduates from various tertiary institutions throughout Australia. In addition to an array of academic papers, two special forums were organised on:
The following papers were presented at the conference:
Australia-Southern Africa
Business Council
Dr Dorward was invited onto the Executive Committee of the Australia-Southern
Africa Business Council.
The Institute, in conjunction with the Business Council, helped
organise a program for Patrick Rutabanzibwa, Permanent Secretary,
Ministry of Energy and Minerals, Government of Tanzania, in Australia
as a guest of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
The Institute was also represented at the South Africa/ Victoria
Trade and Investment Forum, held in conjunction with the Second
Joint Ministerial Commission Conference.
Members of the Institute regularly recieve requests for information
ad advice from Refugee Review Tribunal and from those acting on
behalf of applicants for refugee status.
Dr Dorward was was re-elected President of the African Studies Association of Australasia and the Pacific (AFSAAP). He continued to served as: consultant to the Museum of Victoria, valuer of African art and artefacts under the Commonwealth Taxation Incentive Scheme for the Arts, Consultant to the Australian Council for Overseas Aid, Member of the National Policy Advisory Committee of Community Aid Abroad, Adviser to Clarity Films, San Francisco on a documentary on the anti-apartheid movement, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, USA.
In August, Dr Dorward presented a paper on Australian involvement in the Boer War at a conference in Pretoria, South Africa, `Rethinking the South African War". The paper is to be published in a special Boer War edition of Kunapipi: Journal of Post-Colonial Writing; the Boer War 1899-1902 Special Edition, edited by Elleke Boehmer, forthcoming 2000. Images of the war which formed a core element in the paper will be appearing in a forthcoming British ITV documentary on the Boer War.
Dr Chanock was on leave for part of 1998, as visitor in School
of African and African American Studies at University of North
Carolina, Chapel Hill and as Visiting Prof in Law Faculty at University
of Cape Town. He gave guest lectures and seminars at the University
of Cape Town, The University of Witwatersrand and the University
of Potchefstroom.
Dr Dimock is Honorary Treasurer of the African Studies Association
of Australasia and the Pacific and is responsible for the routine
correspondence of the Association. Dr Dimock presented a 1998
summer school Continuing Education subject on "Women, Race
and Gender in Africa", participated in the training program
on FGM and was co-compiler of the annotated bibliography on Female
Circumcision and Related Genital Surgery which formed part
of the training program resource kit.
Members of the Institute continued to provide expertise to the media a range of subjects relating to African affairs.
Robert Austin Donation: The Institute wishes to express its gratitude to: Robert Austin for additional materials relating to the anti-apartheid movement in Australia and Alexandra McBurnie for a collection of material relating to education in Africa.
Christensen Fund: Donation of Artefacts
to the University During the year the Christensen Fund
donated a collection of African artefacts to LaTrobe University
valued at A$ 21,000. The collection consists of of goldweights
from Ghana (formerly the Gold Coast) and `abbia' from central
Africa. The goldweights have been on display in the Vice-Chancellors
area.
Publications:
Martin Chanock, Re-publication of Law, Custom and Social Order by Heinemann as no 3 in the Modern Classics in African Studies series
Martin Chanock, `Globalisation, Culture, Property' in Couvalis G ed Cultural Heritage: Meanings and Values
Martin Chanock, "A post Calvinist catechism or a post-Marxist manifesto: the South African Bill of Rights' in P.Alston ed Protecting Human Rights by Bills of Rights, Clarendon Press, Oxford.
David Dorward, African editor, SBS World Guide, 6th Edition (Melbourne: Hardie Grant, 1998).
David Dorward, "South Africa: Democracy and Citizenship in a Plural Society" Democracy and Citizenship in a Global Era Andrew Vandenberg, ed. (London: MacMillan, 1998)
Work in Progress
Dr Chanock working towards completion of manuscript of book on history of South African legal culture `Fear, Favour and Prejudice: the making of South Africa legal culture 1900-1936
Dr Nicola Stern has been engaged in on-going research on the `Blue Tuff' sites in Kenya.
Dr Dorward continued his research on material culture and African art in the Antipodes.
Dr Sue Tomas is engaged in research on Buchi Emecheta and on rewriting race and ethnicity for a book she is co-authoring with Ann Blake and Leela Gandhi, England in Twentieth-Century Fiction through Colonial Eyes (Macmillan and St Martin's Press, forthcoming).Return to African Research Institute Home Page.