Belonging in the land: land, landscape, and image in southern African missionary encounters ca. 1840-1915

Brown, C. (2018) Belonging in the land: land, landscape, and image in southern African missionary encounters ca. 1840-1915. Mission Studies, 35(1), pp. 31-56. (doi: 10.1163/15733831-12341546)

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Abstract

To choose a missionary life is to become a stranger at home and abroad, whilst at the same time attempting to construct new networks of belonging. Missionaries have at times identified profoundly with the “foreign,” through economic and political solidarity, or linguistic and cultural immersion, but mission conversely necessitates the attempt to draw the foreign Other into the sphere of Christian fraternal belonging. This paper employs primary textual and visual sources to explore the complex theme of missionary identity and belonging through the lens of landscape. Landscape and its images influenced and were utilized by missionaries, functioning as tokens of belonging, interpretative tools, and sites of territorial possession for example through burial. For indigenous peoples, missionary images of place could also betoken otherness, and conflict with alternative expressions of rooted belonging, for instance in the use of earth as part of the physical substance of indigenous religious art.

Item Type:Articles
Status:Published
Refereed:Yes
Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID:Brown, Clare
Authors: Brown, C.
College/School:College of Arts & Humanities
Journal Name:Mission Studies
Publisher:Brill
ISSN:0168-9789
ISSN (Online):1573-3831
Copyright Holders:Copyright © 2018 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden
First Published:First published in Mission Studies 35(1):31-56
Publisher Policy:Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher

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Project CodeAward NoProject NamePrincipal InvestigatorFunder's NameFunder RefLead Dept
665945BGP2: Scottish Graduate School for the Arts and Humanities (SGSAH)Deirdre HeddonArts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC)AH/L503915/1ARTS COLLEGE OF ARTS ADMINISTRATION