African Research Institute
LaTrobe University

African Research Institute Committee:
Dr David Dorward- History (Director), Prof. Martin Chanock- Law & Legal Studies, Dr Elizabeth Dimock [Seminar Coordinator] , Issah Farah (Post-Graduate Representative), Eva Fisch (Library Representative).

Members of the Institute:
Dr David Dorward (History)
Professor Martin Chanock (Law and Legal Studies)
Dr Paul Cocks (Law and Management)
Dr Sue Thomas (English)
Dr Nicola Stern (Archaeology)
Eva Fisch (Borchardt Library)
Dr Apollo Nsubuga-Kyobe (Business)

Associate Members:
Dr Elizabeth Dimock [seminar coordinator]

Postgraduates:
Derek Overton (History)
Matthew Durban (Grad. School of Business Management)
Issah Farah (History)
Teresa McMahon (History)
Allison Simons (Archaeology)
David Wines (Archaeology)
Mary Ross (English)

Postgraduate Affiliates:
Kwebena Adu-Boahen (Women's Studies, Melbourne)

Honours Students
David Gilbert (History)
Adria Quinn (History/Art History)

Summary of the Activities:

During 2003 the African Research Institute;

*           held seminars on African issues,

*           served as secretariat for the African Studies Association of Australasia and the Pacific (AFSAAP),

*           provided briefing to Australian diplomats posted to Africa and to the corporate sector

*           maintained on-going liaison with the Australia-Southern African Business Council as part of its links with the corporate community.

*           maintained links with the Australian Council for Overseas Aid (ACFOA) and various Non-Government Organisations involved in aid to Africa.

*           provided informed media commentary of a range of African issues

Seminars

The Rt. Rev. McLeord Baker Ochola II, Vice Chairman,   Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative (ARLPI) and Retired Bishop of Kitgum Diocese, Uganda, spoke of his personal role in the negotiations between the government of Uganda and the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in northern Uganda.

Graham Counsel from the Cultural Studies program, University of Melbourne, addressed the second seminar on 'Views of the past: music and politics in West Africa'.

Associate Professor David Dorward spoke on ' "Nigger driver brothers": Australian miners in the Gold Coast (Ghana) in the early twentieth century'.

Dr Neil Parsons, University of Botswana, spoke on 'Film and history in Botswana:   western perceptions of and interventions in Kalahari politics, 1934-2002'.

The Crisis in Northern Uganda- Issues of grave Concern  by Rt Rev. Macleord Baker Ochola II, Retired Bishop of Kigum Diocese, Uganda a paper tabled at the Bishop's seminar delivered on 19 March 2003 at 1 p.m. The Full text of Bishop Ocola address on attempts to broker peace with the Lord's Resistance Army in northern Uganda

Publications:

Liz Dimock, 'Women's leadership roles in the early Protestant Church in Uganda:   continuity with the old order', Australasian Review of African Studies , Volume XXV, number 2, December 2003.

Liz Dimock, 'African Mythology', in J.Parker and J.Stanton, Mythology:   Myths, legends and fantasies , Global Book Publishing, Willoughby NSW, 2003.

Dr Dimock co-authored with Dr Tanya Lyons a forthcoming chapter on 'The state of African Studies in Australia', Paul Zeleza, (ed.) African Studies in a Global Context . U of Rochester Press, 2004 (forthcoming).

David Dorward, "Insights from a Trip through Puntland: Civil Society in a 'Quango-state', Australasian Review of African Studies , XXV, 1 (June 2003).

David Dorward, African Editor , SBS World Guide (Melbourne: Hardie Grant, 2003)

David Dorward, contributor, Colonialism: An International Social, Cultural and Political Encyclopedia 3 vols. Melvin Page, ed. (Oxford: Clio, 2003)

Sue Thomas, "Rewriting the Hysteric as Anorexic in Tsitsi Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions " in Scenes of the Apple: Food and the Female Body in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Women's Writing , ed. Tamar Heller and Patricia Moran (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003): 183-198.

Conference Papers :

Liz Dimock, 'Women, missionary societies, public opinion and empire in 19 th century Britain', ABMHA conference, Canberra, July 2003.

E.Dimock and T.Lyons, "The state of African Studies in Australia', AFSAAP annual conference, October 2003.

Postgraduates:

Matthew Durban (Grad. School of Business Management) submitted his doctoral thesis on 'Foreign Direct Investment in South Africa' in late 2003.

Allison Simons is about to complete her thesis on "Development of Pastoral Society in South West Kenya'.

Donations:

The Institute wishes to acknowledge the generous donations by journalist Nic Maclellan of Horn of Africa journals and African demography publications from Dr David Lucas, formerly of the Australian National University. The Institute has transferred to the Serials Section of the Borchardt Library an extensive collection of journals and publications relating to the liberation struggles in South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Eritrea, Ethiopia and the politics of the Sudan.

Other Activities :

Dr Nicola Stern offered African Archaeology for the first time in 2003, attracting numerous students and much enthusiasm. Dr Liz Dimock taught a subject on Women, Race and Gender in Africa in the Summer Program 2003.   This attracted students requiring credit points in addition to those doing the course for interest

Liz Dimock has been engaged in consultancy work, and continues with research for a commissioned volume on Africa in a Routledge series on Women and Anglo-imperialism, 1750-1930. .   This will comprise a collection of primary sources with head-notes and scholarly introduction, due for completion in December 2005. She continued as Vice-President of AFSAAP through 2002-3, was Acting President from July to October 2003, and continues now as an Ordinary member of the committee, in which capacity she has worked towards bringing a closer liaison between the AFSAAP committee and the African Working Group (AWG) of the Australian Council for Overseas Aid (ACFOA) shortly to be re-named Australian Council for International Development (ACFID).

Dr Dorward was re-elected to the executive committee of the Australia-Southern African Business Council (Vic).   In November 2003, he launched the Business Council's website at a reception hosted by the National Australia Bank and attended by the new South African High Commissioner.

Dr Dorward gave a public address on 'South African art' in conjunction with the RMIT Gallery exhibition, "Intersections: South African Art from the BHP Billiton Collection" and a public address on 'African Gold" as part of the on-going La Trobe University-Albury Regional Gallery public lecture series'- drawing upon Fante and Asante material culture in the collections of the Albury Gallery and La Trobe University.

Dr Dorward also spoke to the Victorian Young Liberal Association on "The Current Crises in Zimbabwe".  

Nicola Stern continued with research-in-progress on SxJj43, a 1.5 million year old archaeological site in northern Kenya.

Issa Farah was appointed presenter of the new Somali-language program of SBS Radio.

The African Institute has been assisting the Somali community in Australia in the collection of academic books and computers for the new University of East Africa in Bosasso, Puntland, northeastern Somalia.   In January 2003, Dr Dorward visited the university and a section of the university library was dedicated as the LaTrobe University Wing.

A delegation from the University of East Africa and the Puntland Minister of Education visited LaTrobe University in August.

Two LaTrobe University undergraduates, Ingvild   Hersoug Nedberg and Olivia McIntye, spent a semester at the University of Ghana, Legon, as part of the Development Studies degree.