Women’s Protestant foreign mission work and settler state formation in Canada: A re-examination of the Scottish diaspora

Abstract

ABSTRACT Renewed interest in empire and colonialism has transformed our understanding of transnational networks and processes of exchange, entanglement, and globalisation. However, colonial entanglement still conceals some significant players in globalising cultures. The Protestant women’s foreign missionary movement pioneered transnational activism by interweaving women’s empowerment in “foreign” and “home” environments into a single mission. Essential in developing conceptual and organisational frameworks to address “global issues,” the movement’s impact upon state formation was also profound. This case study of the Women’s Foreign Missionary Society of the Presbyterian Church in Canada (1876–1914) combines global diaspora frameworks with local, regional, national, and gendered settler lenses. Close review of Scottish diaspora scholarship and a multi-scale approach to the WFMS’s engagement with social reform helps integrate siloed scholarships, revealing how local and foreign mission environments intersected and collaborated to fortify structures of Anglo-Protestant hegemony in Canada and globally.