'Because of the missionaries': The ambiguous presence of past missionaries in the Marshall Islands.
This article analyzes the contemporary presence of pioneering missionaries to the Marshall Islands by looking at how conventional conversion narratives construe them as agents of radical transformation. Ridden with ambiguity, conversion is a recursive factor in social and political life, a fact that...
| Publicado en: | History & Anthropology Vol. 35; no. 1; pp. 134 - 152 |
|---|---|
| Autor principal: | |
| Formato: | Artículo |
| Publicado: |
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Feb2024
|
| Materias: | |
| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=175195013&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 175195013 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 02757206 7VZ jtl: History & Anthropology issn: 02757206 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Feb2024 vid: 35 iid: 1 pid: 377 pub: Taylor & Francis Ltd artinfo: ui: 175195013 10.1080/02757206.2021.1983564 ppf: 134 ppct: 18 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 1.3MB tig: atl: 'Because of the missionaries': The ambiguous presence of past missionaries in the Marshall Islands. aug: au: Berta, Ola Gunhildrud affil: Social Anthropology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway su: Missionaries Historical analysis Social change Narratives Marshall Islands sug: subj: Marshall Islands Missionaries Historical analysis Social change Narratives keyword: Christianity conversion culture historicity past in present ab: This article analyzes the contemporary presence of pioneering missionaries to the Marshall Islands by looking at how conventional conversion narratives construe them as agents of radical transformation. Ridden with ambiguity, conversion is a recursive factor in social and political life, a fact that point to the context-dependent nature of this specific narrative. While rupture often serves as a useful metaphor in folk-models of conversion, it reflects a perspective with a clear political goal and therefore glosses over its inherent ambiguity and dynamism. In the Marshall Islands, the conversion narrative (where the past was horrid while the present is harmonious) is only one way of addressing contemporary challenges through the past. Running parallel to this is another narrative that speaks to a perceived moral degradation in the present, a discourse that relies on a harmonious rather than horrid past. By contrasting the contemporary presence of past missionaries with a historical analysis of the conversion era, this article argues that, more than a moment in history, cultural change is a discursive tool in which the people populating the ethnographic present use distinct representations of the past to address what is at stake here and now. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of History & Anthropology is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: History & Anthropology holder: Taylor & Francis Ltd dt: @attributes: year: 2024 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
|---|