Race, resistance, and the Boy Scout movement in British Colonial Africa / Timothy H. Parsons.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Parsons, Timothy, 1962-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Scouting (Youth activity)--Great Britain--Colonies--Africa.

Scouting (Youth activity).

Scouts (Youth organization members)--Great Britain--Colonies--Africa.

Scouts (Youth organization members).

Scouting (Reconnaissance)--Great Britain--Colonies--Africa.

Scouting (Reconnaissance).

Scouts (Reconnaissance)--Great Britain--Colonies--Africa.

Scouts (Reconnaissance).

Colonies.

Race relations.

History.

Great Britain.

Africa.

Great Britain--Colonies--Africa--Administration.

Administration.

Great Britain--Colonies--Africa--Race relations--History.

Physical Description:

xviii, 315 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Athens, Ohio : Ohio University Press, [2004]

Summary:

Conceived of by General Sir Robert Baden-Powell as a means to reduce class tensions in Edwardian Britain, Scouting offered the romantic outdoor life as a cure for the disruption caused by industrialization and urbanization. It evolved into a successful international youth movement and spread around the world by attaching itself to institutions of authority. As a result, Scouting has become embroiled in controversies including the civil rights struggle in the American South, nationalism in India, and the contemporary American debate over gay rights.

British officials introduced Scouting to colonial Africa to strengthen their rule. In Race, Resistance, and the Boy Scout Movement in British Colonial Africa, Timothy Parsons uses Scouting as an analytical tool to explore the tensions in that society. The movement appealed to the students, juvenile delinquents, and urban migrants who threatened the regime. It also held the promise of making Western education more compatible with British rule by teaching ambitious African students to accept their place in colonial society. Yet Africans themselves used Scouting to claim the rights of full imperial citizenship. They invoked the Fourth Scout Law, which declared that a Scout was a brother to every other Scout, to challenge racial discrimination.

Parsons shows that African Scouting was thus both an instrument of colonial authority and a subversive challenge to the legitimacy of the British Empire. His study of African Scouting demonstrates the implications and far-reaching consequences of colonial authority in all its guises.

Contents:

Introduction

Scouting and schools as colonial institutions

Pathfinding in Southern Africa, 1908/45

Scouting and the school in East Africa, 1910/45

Scouting and independency in East Africa, 1946/64

Scouting and apartheid in Southern Africa, 1945/80

Independence and after

Appendix : the scout law and promise.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 299-315) and index.

ISBN:

0821415956

0821415964

OCLC:

55955148