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Antipodeans Abroad: Trends and Issues in the Writing of New Zealand Mission History
Author(s) -
MORRISON HUGH
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
journal of religious history
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.117
H-Index - 13
eISSN - 1467-9809
pISSN - 0022-4227
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9809.2006.00389.x
Subject(s) - colonialism , indigenous , nationalism , narrative , sociology , gender studies , history , product (mathematics) , anthropology , political science , literature , politics , law , ecology , archaeology , art , geometry , mathematics , biology
There has been a paucity of reflective and contextual analysis of New Zealand's historical involvement in the international missionary movement. This article suggests that existing literature falls into four categories: denominational/organizational histories; biographies and personal narratives; unpublished university theses; and a small body of more reflective and contextual works. Historical analysis since 1990 reflects wider historical discourses, rather than being the specific product of mission history. Valuable analysis has focused on women's involvement, culture contact, and the relationship between New Zealand missions, European colonialism and indigenous nationalist movements. Yet the theological nature of missionary involvement has been less extensively understood, obscuring the nuanced nature of things like missionary motivation and the relationship with colonialism. A lacuna still exists with respect to: a comprehensive and comparative analysis of post‐1945 missionary involvement; micro and macro‐historical analysis of missionary support; the gendered nature of missionary support; and the role of children and young people in missionary structures and discourse.