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Author
Date
2024-03-01Type
- Journal Article
ETH Bibliography
yes
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Abstract
This article explores the attitudes of the 19th-century Basel Mission (BM) towards individuals considered «lower caste» in South India. It analyses discourses related to the regulation and administration of the body and mind, with the aim of producing social categories and shaping a society that adhered to Protestant norms. Using missionary photographs, narratives, annual reports, and booklets, the dominant conception of religious conversion is problematized, generally defined as a change in one’s «spiritual being». This article argues that conversion in non-European settings was entangled with multiple meanings of self-transformation centred around the complex duality of body and mind. In Protestant thinking, the mind was prioritised because it dealt with the «Word of God», while the heart, which represented bodily passions, emotions, and desires, needed to be individually tamed. Show more
Permanent link
https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000662160Publication status
publishedExternal links
Journal / series
Schweizerische Zeitschrift für GeschichteVolume
Pages / Article No.
Publisher
Schweizerische Gesellschaft für GeschichteOrganisational unit
03814 - Fischer-Tiné, Harald / Fischer-Tiné, Harald
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ETH Bibliography
yes
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