Chapter Five. ‘Self’ And ‘Other’ As Biblical Representations In Mission Literature

Abstract

This chapter is a textual analysis of the written missionary narratives on Ambohipiantrana during the two first decades it was run by the Norwegian Missionary Society (NMS), from 1887 to 1907. The ambition has been to examine these narratives as literature, and how this literature is part of a discourse interacting with other texts, narratives and understandings of leprosy at the time. The scepticism towards contagionism and segregation – today often referred to as anti-contagionism – included several medical and other branches within the world of leprosy, from Christian-conservative wings to anti-positivists, anti-Darwinists and others fearing that the influence of laboratory medicine and medical positivism would replace traditional Hippocratic and Christian values of Western medicine. The anti-Catholicism and anti-contagionism are united in ambiguous narratives about Ambohipiantrana. The text material from the leprosy work of NMS in Madagascar is extensive. Keywords:Ambohipiantrana; anti-catholicism; anti-contagionism; confessionalised medicine; leprosy narratives; Madagascar; Norwegian missionary society (NMS)