Missionaries, Masculinities and War: The London Missionary Society in Southern Africa, c.1860-1899

• Published in: South African Historical Journal 2009-06, Vol.61 (2), p.232-253
• Main Author: Cleall, Esme
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: colonial violence; gender; identity; masculinity; missionaries; periodicals; southern Africa; war
• ISSN: 0258-2473; 1726-1686
• DOI: 10.1080/02582470902859476

This article will explore the representation of missionary masculinities in London Missionary Society (LMS) periodicals. Despite the increasing numbers of single female missionaries sent by the LMS to the 'East' during the nineteenth century, the southern African mission field remained, for the most part, resolutely male. Yet, to date, there has been little consideration of the male missionary as a gendered subject. This paper seeks to explore how missionaries negotiated masculine identities within southern Africa, and how images of missionary masculinity were then conveyed to the metropolitan British public through the medium of the missionary periodical. The article will focus on war as both an archetypal arena for the performance of masculinity, and as a key characteristic of nineteenth-century southern Africa, where conflicts, both indigenous and colonial, were frequent and long-lasting.