Missionaries as actors of transformation and transfer. Extra-European contact zones and European spaces of resonance (1860-1940) (29 September to 1 October 2011)

Missionaries were among the central brokers in erecting and transforming global emotion, body and knowledge regimes. They contributed to a reformulation of the Eurocentric perception of the world. They helped to extend and refine cultural contact und to gather, to classify and to order the rapidly multiplying information about the ways of living, social relations, political systems and not least religions in every part of the world. Missionaries did not stop at this point, the formulated narratives and produced images about Europe’s role and activities in the world. They entered a discourse on European modernity and superiority. In the 20th century they facilitated the transformation of a colonial civilizing mission into a project of development assistance maintained by governmental and non-governmental actors alike. At the same time the spaces occupied by European missionaries were hybrid and became increasingly so, with Christian faith becoming appropriated by non-European communities, converts becoming missionaries, and missionary knowledge and practice being (and having always been) dependent on respective local adaption. Whether and how these new forms of hybridity resonated in the European homelands of Christian mission remains to be studied.
Before this background the workshop asks question on the nature of exchange, transfer and transformation brought about by missionary action:
Which role did missionaries have in forming European spaces of resonance on cultural contact? Which ideological and emotional dispositions figured in the outlook and the actions of missionaries at different times and how did they facilitate the production of new, transnational bonds of emotion and identity? What kinds of body and gender politics lay at the base of missionary activity (race, ethnicity, intimacy)? What kinds of aspirations and hopes have driven missionaries and their addressees at different times? What roles did the actors in the missionary field take on for themselves and ascribe to others (“helper”, “savior”, “modernist”, “developer”, “victim”, “culprit”, “primitive”)? And how were these acted out in terms of power relations, claims making or political/economic participation? What kind of knowledge was transferred between missionaries and their addressees about Europe and the societies of the mission field? Did missionaries legitimize colonial or postcolonial order, or did they inspire critical positions on the asymmetries of power relations?
These questions and others that target the cultural as well as anthropological dimension of globalization with regards to missionary activity can only be answered in interdisciplinary exchange and by focusing on various geographical areas (in this case Africa, Asia and Europe).

The Workshop was initiated by Fellow Prof. Dr. Shalini Randeria (University of Zürich, Fellow Lichtenberg-Kolleg 2010/11) and Prof. Dr. Rebekkka Habermas and Dr. Richard Hölzl (Departmant for History, Göttingen). The workshop is supported by the Fritz Thyssen Stiftung für Wissenschaftsförderung.