Capping Power? Clothing and the Female Body in African Methodist Episcopal Mission Photographs

In this article, I argue that the introduction of a uniform for female converts was a crucial factor in maintaining power dynamics in African Methodist Episcopal missionary work conducted in South Africa between 1900 and 1940. This relationship, I suggest, is epitomized in photographs from the missi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Mission studies
Main Author: Cooke, Claire (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Brill 2014
In: Mission studies
Further subjects:B African American missionary women photography clothing power South Africa
Online Access: Volltext (Verlag)
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Summary:In this article, I argue that the introduction of a uniform for female converts was a crucial factor in maintaining power dynamics in African Methodist Episcopal missionary work conducted in South Africa between 1900 and 1940. This relationship, I suggest, is epitomized in photographs from the mission field. Through studying the ways missionaries photographed women, I am able to critique how clothing expressed inherent, imbalanced power relations between missionaries and converts. I thus build on existing literature concerning the relationship between clothing and the indigenous female body, through an examination of clothing as a marker of status within the patriarchal mission family construct.
ISSN:1573-3831
Contains:In: Mission studies
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1163/15733831-12341359