Identity and political consciousness in Southern Mozambique, 1930–1974: two Presbyterian biographies contextualised

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The Swiss Mission's work, particularly in the field of education, contributed to the reshaping of identity and political consciousness in southern Mozambique, and had a critical influence on youth. Through its programme of informal education, the Mission enhanced young people's capacity to understand and analyse the world around them. By promoting access to secondary and university education and by preparing an African leadership for the church, the Swiss Mission helped to form an educated elite and inadvertently contributed to the emergence of a nationalist leadership. In this article, I focus on the biographies of Sebastião Mabote and Una Magaia, two nationalist leaders who grew up as members of the Presbyterian church, joined Frelimo and assumed an important role in Mozambican politics and society after independence. My aim is to explore the multiple identities expressed in their life stories and to show how socialisation into African families, combined with Presbyterian education, helped to shape national consciousness in colonial southern Mozambique.