Introduction: Missionaries and Masculinities

Abstract

This book examines male missionaries and constructs of masculinity. A missionary can be defined as someone who attempts to convert others to a particular doctrine, programme or faith. Although it is not always the case, a missionary is often seen as someone ‘going to’ or being ‘sent to’ a ‘foreign’ place to carry out a mission. The group of men scrutinised in the current study served as Christian missionaries between 1870 and 1930, representing the Lutheran mission Norwegian Missionary Society (NMS), which was established in 1842. The first NMS missionaries reached the shores of south-east Africa in 1844, arriving at the coastal town of Durban, which was situated in a region that had been proclaimed the British Colony of Natal in the previous year (1843). The target group for their missionary activity was the Zulu ethnic group.1 In addition to establishing a ‘mission station’2 in Natal, the NMS missionaries also settled in Zululand, a sovereign African kingdom on the eastern frontier of Natal.KeywordsMission StationHegemonic MasculinityMission OrganisationGender SystemMission WorkThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.