Sisters in Spirit : Christianity, Affect, and Community Building in East Africa, 1860–1970 / Andreana C. Prichard.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Prichard, Andreana C., author.

Series:

African history and culture.

African history and culture

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Universities' Mission to Central Africa--History.

Universities' Mission to Central Africa.

Christian women--Religious life--Africa, East.

Christian women.

Christian women--Africa, East--Social conditions.

Anglican Communion--Missions--Africa, East--History.

Anglican Communion.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (354 pages).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

East Lansing, Michigan : Michigan State University Press, 2017.

Summary:

In this pioneering study, historian Andreana Prichard presents an intimate history of a single mission organization, the Universities' Mission to Central Africa (UMCA), told through the rich personal stories of a group of female African lay evangelists. Founded by British Anglican missionaries in the 1860s, the UMCA worked among refugees from the Indian Ocean slave trade on Zanzibar and among disparate communities on the adjacent Tanzanian mainland. Prichard illustrates how the mission's unique theology and the demographics of its adherents produced cohorts of African Christian women who, in the face of linguistic and cultural dissimilarity, used the daily performance of a certain set of "civilized" Christian values and affective relationships to evangelize to new inquirers. The UMCA's "sisters in spirit" ultimately forged a united spiritual community that spanned discontiguous mission stations across Tanzania and Zanzibar, incorporated diverse ethnolinguistic communities, and transcended generations. Focusing on the emotional and personal dimensions of their lives and on the relationships of affective spirituality that grew up among them, Prichard tells stories that are vital to our understanding of Tanzanian history, the history of religion and Christian missions in Africa, the development of cultural nationalisms, and the intellectual histories of African women.

Contents:

Introduction. Affecting missions

Tractarian beginnings : theology and society in nineteenth-century Britain and East Africa

From slaves to Christian mothers : developing a doctrine of female evangelism, 1863-1877

"Industrials" and "schoolgirls" : bonds of personal dependency and the Mbweni Girls' School, 1877-1890

Networks of affective spirituality : evangelism and expansion, 1890-1930

Of marriages and mimbas : minding the borders of the Christian community, 1910-1930

"I am a spiritual mother" : affect, celibacy, and social reproduction, 1920-1970

The intimacies of national belonging : community building in post-independence Tanzania, 1960-1970.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-62895-292-X

1-60917-522-0

OCLC:

971045351