Butterflies & Barbarians: Swiss Missionaries and Systems of Knowledge in South-East Africa

by Patrick Harries

Overview

Swiss missionaries played a primary and little-known role in explaining Africa to the literate world in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This book emphasizes how these European intellectuals, brought to the deep rural areas of southern Africa by their vocation, formulated and ordered knowledge about the continent.

Central to this group was Junod, who became a pioneering collector in the fields of entomology and botany. He would later examine African society with the methodology, theories, and confidence of the natural sciences. On the way he came to depend on the skills of African observers and collectors. Out of this work emerged, in three stages between 1898 and 1927, an influential classic in the field of South African anthropology, Life of a South African Tribe.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780821417775
Publisher:	Ohio University Press
Publication date:	10/08/2007
Edition description:	1
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Patrick Harries is a professor of history at the University of Basel and author of Work, Culture and Identity: Migrant Laborers in Mozambique and South Africa, c. 1860–1910.

Table of Contents

List of Maps and Figures     xi
Chapter Openings     xii
Acknowledgements     xiii
Colour Plates between     xvi
Introduction     1
Switzerland     10
Evangelism and Identity     11
Political Revolution and Religious Change     16
The Independent Church of Neuchatel     22
Missionary Origins     27
African Itineraries & Swiss Identities     35
Africa Comes to Switzerland     35
African Images and Swiss Identities     39
Europe's Past in Africa's Present     44
Africa in Switzerland     50
Christianity     67
Native Christianity or the Limits of Tolerance     68
Mission Christianity     80
Economic Development and Evangelical Expansion     86
Landscape     96
Landscape and Identity: Switzerland     97
The African Landscape     101
Landscape and Society     109
Creating a Sense of Place: Cartography     113
Natural Sciences     123
Collecting in Switzerland     124
Science in Support of Religion     125
African Adventures in Taxonomy     131
Social Evolution and Natural Imperialism     140
Language     155
Defining a Written Language     157
Adapting Borders: Classification     162
Language and Structures of Power     165
Adapting Borders: the Ronga Language     169
Literacy     182
Reading in western Switzerland     182
The Transformative Powers of the Word     184
Literacy as a Local Skill     189
Ways of Reading     193
Literacy and Politics     200
Anthropology     206
New Knowledge     206
Anthropology and the Scientific Method     216
Salvage Anthropology     219
Evolutionism     228
Race and Politics     234
Politics     246
Anthropology and Social Change     249
Bantu Heritage and History     254
Conclusion     261
Bibliography     266
Index     280

Editorial Reviews

Harries points out in detail the intellectual heritage of the missionaries in terms of their anthropological, religious, geographical, scientific, and linguistic beliefs.... The book is deeply researched and gives the reader a strong sense of the ferment out of which missionaries tried to make sense of their vocations.”
— International Journal of African Historical Studies


“(T)his lavishly illustrated volume remains a towering achievement that lifts mission studies to a level of sophistication rarely achieved in the past.”
— Journal of African History


“This book is a masterly work of detailed transnational research in at least five languages, deft analysis, and intentional crafting. With sure deliberation, the narrative steps between continents and forward and backward in time. The prose is smooth, the photographs evocative. Many thanks to the publisher for reproducing a set of them in colour.”
— Environment and History


“The intellectual lives of one small group of Swiss missionaries suggest a new perspective on the dynamic relationship between Europeans and Africans involved in missions.”
— Terrae Incognitae


“This is a book about Swiss missionaries, Thonga, and systems of knowledge in southeast Africa, but it is also very much about power and its limits in contested intellectual and cultural arenas.…This is a satisfying and detailed book. Whether on the topic of butterflies, botanizing unexplored terrains, the implications of literacy, or the politics of university appointments, Harries efforts are clearly up to Junod’s high standards.”
— H-Luso-Africa


“Harries excels in describing the intellectual influences that informed the scientific endeavors of the missionaries. His focus on the Swiss missionary contribution offers a unique angle on the history of science in Africa.”
— ISIS, Journal of the History of Science Society

“Butterflies and Barbarians deserves a wide audience. Students in advanced undergraduate and graduate courses on African history, imperialism, and missionaries would find many insights here on the politics of knowledge in a colonial setting.”
— African Studies Quarterly


“Taking apart Junod’s categorical and analytical modes of understanding and sorting through them, Harries shows us exactly how the levered interactions of knowledge, power, and negotiation worked, in the critical era of missionaries’ assemblage of ethnographic knowledge.”
— American Historical Review

From the Publisher