The Effects of Disease on the London Missionary Society’s South Seas Missions between 1797 and 1860

European missionary activity enabled not only the communication of the Christian message, but facilitated the dissemination of a mélange of diseases amongst epidemiologically disparate cultural groupings. This paper explores the influence of disease upon the London Missionary Society’s South Seas mi...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Alden, Jonny (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Brill 2018
In: Social sciences and missions
Year: 2018, Volume: 31, Issue: 1/2, Pages: 99-129
Further subjects:B Mission (international law Christianity Polynesia disease Other South Seas medicine London Missionary Society
B Mission (international law christianisme Polynésie maladie altérité Océanie médecine London Missionary Society
Online Access: Volltext (Verlag)
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Summary:European missionary activity enabled not only the communication of the Christian message, but facilitated the dissemination of a mélange of diseases amongst epidemiologically disparate cultural groupings. This paper explores the influence of disease upon the London Missionary Society’s South Seas missions between 1797 and 1860. I argue that disease shaped missionary activity in three central ways: Firstly, through shaping missionaries’ primary experiences; secondly, through moulding the ways in which native peoples conceptualised and responded to the Christian message; and finally, through contributing profoundly towards missionary conceptions of European superiority and the Polynesian ‘other’.
ISSN:1874-8945
Contains:In: Social sciences and missions
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1163/18748945-03003004