Fipa families : reproduction and Catholic evangelization in Nkansi, Ufipa, 1880-1960 / Kathleen R. Smythe.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Smythe, Kathleen R., 1966-

Series:

Social history of Africa 1099-8098

Social history of Africa, 1099-8098

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Catholic Church.

Christianity and culture--Tanzania.

Christianity and culture.

Families--Tanzania.

Families.

Fipa (African people)--Religion.

Fipa (African people).

Catholic Church--Missions--Tanzania.

Church history.

Missions.

Tanzania--Church history.

Tanzania.

Physical Description:

xxx, 202 pages : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm.

Place of Publication:

Portsmouth, NH : Heinemann, [2006]

Summary:

Ufipa, a labor reserve for Tanganyika, witnessed minimal colonial development. Instead, evangelization by White Fathers' Catholic missionaries began in the 1870s. By the 1950s, the missionaries had secured varying degrees of political, economic and social authority in the region, witnessed by the fact that the vast majority of Fipa had converted to Catholicism. Fipa Families examines how this happened from the Fipa perspective. Initially, employees of the mission sought to oversee the education and moral upbringing of at least one child from each family, substituting boarding school for the care relatives would otherwise have provided. A few mission parents even opted to forego the multiple benefits of grandchildren so a child could pursue the celibate path of a religious vocation.

The opportunities of the Catholic Church complemented and competed with Fipa processes of social and biological reproduction, and Catholicism became part of the fabric of Fipa society because of, and despite, its resonance with Fipa culture. At the heart of both Fipa and missionary concerns were the processes of socialization (social reproduction) and biological reproduction, processes carried out within the context of the family. Written primarily for scholars and students of African colonial history, mission history, and family and childhood history, this study is based on a rich collection of oral and documentary sources. Working with this wealth of information, Smythe breaks new ground in placing African social and moral concerns parallel to those of missionaries, resurrecting the study of the family (rather than kinship, lineage, or clan) within African history, and demonstrating at the level of the family and village the ways in which ideas of socialization, reproduction, and education were challenged and re-created in the colonial context in Ufipa.

Contents:

Introduction : Fipa families

Church, religion and state in Nkansi, 1880-1960

Where one slept mattered : Fipa socialization and cultural perceptions of growth in Nkansi, Ufipa, c. 1900

Home away from home : generational experiences and attitudes toward boarding-school education

The boarding school experience : Baraza and Karema

Socializing Fipa priests and sisters

"Child of the clan" or "child of the priests" : life stories of two Fipa Catholic sisters

Conclusion : Fipa and missionary socialization.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [179]-198)-and index.

ISBN:

0325071128

0325071136

OCLC:

64594253

Publisher Number:

9780325071121