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...
Main Author: | |
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Format: | Electronic Article |
Language: | English |
Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
Journals Online & Print: | |
Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
Published: |
Brill
2014
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In: |
Mission studies
Year: 2014, Volume: 31, Issue: 3, Pages: 418-442 |
Further subjects: | B
African American
missionary women
photography
clothing
power
South Africa
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Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) |
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. |
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ISSN: | 1573-3831 |
Contains: | In: Mission studies
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Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1163/15733831-12341359 |