Written by Ani Wierenga
Vice President for Australia, New Zealand and Oceania
Background: The following notes were originally written for family and friends at home, to describe my experience of being in Durban for the ISA World Congress of Sociology in July 2006. The piece might provide a sense of the setting for those who were not able to attend, and jog some memories for those who were. The sessions and social gatherings were a rare opportunity to get together and hear stories from so many different places. I was particularly inspired by the Latvian women and their input. Thanks All and warmest wishes, Ani.
This South Africa visit was for the International Sociological Association Conference. I heard that about 4000 of us descended on Durban for the conference. Thankfully the youth research strand (Research Committee 34) is a little smaller than that (I think we have 133 members from 43 countries – many of whom attended) and like other research committees this one had a 6 day internal program of its own with a solid membership and collegial core group. Like others I co-chaired some session and gave a paper. And then we disbanded by 8.30 every night and usually re-convened at a nice little watering hole at the docklands called ‘Cafe Fish’ …
A bit of an eye opener as we first headed into Durban. Pulled up outside the hotel that we would stay in for the conference. I foraged around the car and gathered some old groceries into a plastic bag and dumped them in a garbage bin outside the hotel. Went to check in. When we came back out of the hotel a young teenage boy was holding up the loaf of bread that we had just tossed, like it was a trophy. His family applauded from the other side of the road…
Durban was a really confronting mix of so many of the things that we would discuss at the conference. The setting was beautiful – not that dissimilar to Australia’s Brisbane or Gold Coast, but provided so much to think about (inequalities, social change, crime, personal security, policy responses…). We heard that several of the delegates got mugged (apparently by kids?) for their wallets and handbags, at least one injured by the knives, and in the name of protecting tourism by mid-week we had police escorts everywhere (even to walk us across the road) . This cut through the usual conference mode of drifting around and meeting people because we were constantly reminded that it wasn’t safe to walk. It also set up a sense of disconnection from the space we occupied. Taxi drivers became the commentators of the city, as we ferried around to pre-arranged places. This evoked moments of laughter but was also quite bizarre – as one colleague described it: ‘this is a very nice prison’. Also a really in-the-face reminder of the cost of social inequalities.
Surreal to be discussing youth issues in the Durban context. With a high quality tightly pre-arranged program full of material by people mostly from everywhere else, (perhaps symbolically in a room with no windows?), it was a daily challenge to integrate context with the day’s learnings. On the last day I looked out my shiny 19th story hotel window at the kids drifting on the beach and wondered where my head had got to. Who works with these kids? Are there ways that these folks might have shared a story with us? Might a set of conference goers – some affluent – make links or make a small difference with such an organization if it exists? 20 / 20 hindsight, 4 hours before the flight home. Perhaps in our brief time there others might have managed this more effectively than me. Apart from supporting the local economy (especially Cafe Fish and the taxis), a loaf of bread in a rubbish bin had been my most practical response.
Food for thought…