Undressing Durban: Behind the Tourist Gaze

'Undressing Durban' was originally conceived as a guide, with accessible and engaging papers, for international delegates at the 2006 International Socological Association meeting in Durban, South Africa. It was a short collection of papers about Durban which aimed at revealing aspects of the city normally hidden by popular tourist images. Rather than 'dressing up' Durban and presenting it as Other and exotic, the emphasis was on how cultural diversity was lived. The present extended version aims at a wider audience. Some articles are more conventionally academic, some impassioned and rhetorical, some are autobiographical, some focus on the 'voices' of 'minorities' and one deals with 'racial', gender and global inequalities in the form of a play set in Durban. The articles were not written in relation to prescribed themes, but the themes emerged from the writing: Introducing Durban; Outsiders in Durban (and Durbanites as outsiders); Mixed 'race' heterosexual partners in Durban; Sport, entertainment and relaxation; Transport and residential spaces in Durban; Shack dwellers; Living on the streets and in shelters in Durban; Fear of crime and moral panics; Gangsters; Punishments; Indian identities and culture; Black African identities and culture; HIV and AIDS; University of KwaZulu-Natal; Women sex workers in Durban; and Challenging local and global inequalities.