A Balancing Act: The Norwegian Lutheran Mission in French Colonial Madagascar

Itinerario ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 45-63
Author(s):  
Karina Hestad Skeie
Keyword(s):  
European Country ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Colonial Studies ◽  
Central Concern ◽  
French Colonial ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Role Of Religion

The plural and particularised expressions of colonialism remain a central concern for post-colonial studies. This paper will discuss the role of the Norwegian Lutheran mission in colonial Madagascar in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. The case of a Protestant mission from a small European country operating in a French colony provides an interesting opportunity to explore the implications of inter-European dynamics in colonial politics and the role of religion in the relationships between missionaries, colonial subjects, and colonial powers.

scholarly journals Homosexuality, Politics and Pentecostal Nationalism in Zambia

2014 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 259-281 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adriaan van Klinken
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Culture Wars ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Local Configuration ◽  
Public Debates ◽  
Role Of Religion ◽  
Christian Nation ◽  
The Devil ◽  
Alternative Reading

Building upon debates about the politics of nationalism and sexuality in post-colonial Africa, this article highlights the role of religion in shaping nationalist ideologies that seek to regulate homosexuality. It specifically focuses on Pentecostal Christianity in Zambia, where the constitutional declaration of Zambia as a Christian nation has given rise to a form of ‘Pentecostal nationalism’ in which homosexuality is considered to be a threat to the purity of the nation and is associated with the Devil. The article offers an analysis of recent Zambian public debates about homosexuality, focusing on the ways in which the ‘Christian nation’ argument is deployed, primarily in a discourse of anti-homonationalism, but also by a few recent dissident voices. The latter prevent Zambia, and Christianity, from accruing a monolithic depiction as homophobic. Showing that the Zambian case presents a mobilisation against homosexuality that is profoundly shaped by the local configuration in which Christianity defines national identity – and in which Pentecostal-Christian moral concerns and theo-political imaginations shape public debates and politics – the article nuances arguments that explain African controversies regarding homosexuality in terms of exported American culture wars, proposing an alternative reading of these controversies as emerging from conflicting visions of modernity in Africa.1

Between Unity and Diversity: The Construction of the Indonesian Nation

2006 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johan Meuleman
Keyword(s):  
Nation Building ◽  
New Order ◽  
Historical Approach ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Building Process ◽  
Religion And Ethnicity ◽  
Role Of Religion

AbstractThis article studies the process of nation-building in Indonesia. Using a historical approach for the analysis of what is portrayed as a nonlinear, long-term process, it discusses relevant developments during the pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial eras, with particular attention to the New Order and most recent periods. The analysis focuses on the complex relations between unity and diversity and highlights the multiplicity of frame-works within which inhabitants of the present Republic of Indonesia have constituted their identities, including national, transnational and subnational ones. Two questions that receive particular attention are the role of religion and the relations between the centre and various parts of the country. The article argues that various factors, including religion and ethnicity, have contributed to nation-building in specific circumstances, but have had contrary effects under other conditions. It also shows that progress and regression in nation-building has partially been the voluntary or involuntary effect of the tactical use governments and other political actors have made of manifold communal differences. It adds that the identity of Indonesian citizens becomes increasingly complex and trans- as well as subnational components increasingly important, but that this does not automatically imply the end of the nation-building process.

scholarly journals The Christmas Season and the Protestant Churches in England, c. 1870–1914

2011 ◽  
Vol 62 (4) ◽  
pp. 744-762 ◽  
Author(s):  
NEIL ARMSTRONG
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Public Culture ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Protestant Churches ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Role Of Religion ◽  
Festive Season

Histories of the English Christmas tend to downplay the role of religion in the development of the modern festival. This article examines the place of religion in the popular celebration of Christmas, as well as the provision of worship offered by the Protestant Churches during the festive season. It argues that although some churchmen viewed Christmas pessimistically as part of a broader battle between sacred and secular, the Churches played an important role in the expansion of the urban public culture of Christmas in the late nineteenth century, whilst the doctrine of the incarnation provided a religious framework for the celebration of childhood and domesticity that the festival had come to embody.

“Pirates of the Sea and the Land”

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Eklöf Amirell
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
Colonial Expansion ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
French Colonial ◽  
Late Nineteenth

This chapter turns to the prominent role of “piracy” in French colonial expansion in Vietnam in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The author demonstrates how the long-standing European fascination with pirates in popular culture made it expedient for French colonial officials to label anyone who resisted French colonial expansion in Vietnam as pirates, even if this meant that the concept was stretched to its limit and applied to bandits as well as Vietnamese court officials who had never set foot on a sea-going vessel. Amirell also juxtaposes the French and Vietnamese concepts associated with piracy, banditry, and subversion and shows how the Vietnamese king Tu Duc, not unreasonably, accused the French navy of piracy.

scholarly journals Post-Colonial Rome, and Beyond

2021 ◽  
pp. 309-320
Author(s):  
Andrew Gardner
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Cultural Change ◽  
Focal Point ◽  
Roman Archaeology ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Colonial Studies ◽  
Colonial Theory ◽  
The Impact

Roman archaeology is one of the major subfields of archaeology in which post-colonial theory has flourished, and not just in relation to the role of the past in the present, but also as a means to approach the interpretation of the Roman world itself. The region of North Africa was a major focal point for some of the earliest post-colonial studies on the Roman Empire, and has remained an arena of investigation for scholars influenced by the Anglophone debate on post-colonial theory, which emerged in the 1980s and flourished in the 1990s, often with a focus on Roman Britain. Religion is both a key source of evidence and an obviously important theme in understanding cultural change, interaction and power, and thus it has likewise been of interest to scholars from within and beyond the region. Here, I give an overview of the work of some of the influential Roman archaeologists working within the post-colonial tradition. I also consider the complex intersections of ancient and modern, and of Britain and North Africa, found in this body of work, and evaluate the impact this tradition of thought continues to have on Roman archaeology going forwards.

Secular Democracies, Governance and Politics of Religion in South Asia

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 244-261
Author(s):  
Surya Prakash Upadhyay
Keyword(s):  
South Asia ◽  
South Asian ◽  
Religion And Politics ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Asian Countries ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Politics Of Religion ◽  
Colonial Histories ◽  
Role Of Religion

South Asian countries have a lot of commonalities exhibited through socio-political and economic situations. The cultural as well as political dynamics within the countries form more or less a similar pattern. These are closely related to colonial pasts, post-colonial histories, polyethnic population, political leadership and governance. These commonalities are also related to political instability, ethnic violence and a greater role of religion in the formation of secular democracies. Scholars have observed that in the post-colonial period, religion has played an important role in political formations in South Asian countries. This article looks at political situations, since the early 1950s, and traces the trajectory of religions’ association in formation of secular democracies in these countries. The article looks at available literature on South Asia and discusses two key ideas: how and why religion and politics are intertwined in South Asian countries, and ramifications of such association in the expansion of secular democracy. The article argues that religion has always been a potent force in South Asian countries and secularisation, in the Western sense, has never been achieved. Therefore, formations of secular democracy take different trajectories in South Asia.

India: Yuri Nasenko: Jawaharlal Nehru and India's Foreign Policy. Sterling Publishers, New Delhi, 1977, 351p., Rs. 75.

1979 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-141
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
New Delhi ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Indian Politics ◽  
British Raj ◽  
South Indian ◽  
Role Of Religion ◽  
Jawaharlal Nehru

INDIA: yuri nasenko: Jawaharlal Nehru and India's Foreign Policy. INDIA: s.r. mehrotra: The Commonwealth and the Nation. INDIA: arun kumar banerji: India and Britain 1947-68: The Evolution of Post-Colonial Relations. INDIA: anima bose: Mahatma Gandhi—A Contemporary Perspective. INDIA: j.d. sethi: Gandhi Today. INDIA: b.r. nanda: Gokhale: The Indian Moderates and the British Raj. INDIA: k.c. choudhry: Role of Religion in Indian Politics (1900-1925). INDIA: h.s bhatia, Ed.: Origin and Development of Legal and Political System in India: Volume III. INDIA: centre for development studies, trivandrum: Poverty, Unemployment and Development Policy: A Case Study of Selected Issues with Reference to Kerala. INDIA: mark holmstrom: South Indian Factory Workers: Their Life and their World.

The Role of Women in Tunisia from Bourguiba to the Promulgation of New Constitution

2018 ◽  
Vol 98 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-202
Author(s):  
Leila El Houssi
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Cultural Transformation ◽  
North African ◽  
Abuse Of Power ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Colonial Studies ◽  
Political Modernity ◽  
Democratic Principles ◽  
Radical Transformation

Abstract The question of women became one of those fundamental issues used by North African nations in order to demonstrate to Western countries just how “democratic” they were. In this regard, the legislation in favour of women’s emancipation in Tunisia undoubtedly reveals an important peculiarity. In 1956 Tunisia underwent an important modernisation following the independence obtained from France. This produced a social emancipation not found in other Islamic countries, resulting in the acquisition of women’s rights, for example, the abolition of polygamy. Since the 1970s, women have felt as if they are hostages to politics and, through some feminist associations, denounce inequalities despite enjoying certain rights, becoming aware of their subordination in a male-dominated society. With Bourguiba’s successor, Ben ʿAlī, assuming power in 1987, a policy emerged in which the rights of women seemed to be guaranteed, without guaranteeing human rights. And Tunisia revealed, much like other countries, a sort of mutilated modernity, in which the modernisation process was put in motion, without the modernising state committing itself to promoting a political modernity with the adoption of true democratic principles. Moreover, how much did the secularism of the Ben ʿAlī regime coincide with the transformation of Tunisian society? Perhaps the abuse of power by the dictator neutralised the paradigm of human rights? Social and cultural transformation beginning with Bourguiba and continuing with Ben ʿAlī produced an “Islamic-secular” country also as it relates to gender issues. But, with the victory of the Islamic party al-Nahḍayn the 2011 elections, will there be a radical transformation of women in society? And with Tunisia’s new constitution finally being adopted in January 2014, has it been considered a victory for women? This paper seeks to stimulate debate on the issue in the context of post-colonial studies through a social-historical perspective.

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