Abstract
The museum at the London Missionary Society headquarters has been studied largely by those with an interest in early Polynesian missionary encounters, and has become famous as a repository for pre-Christian religious ‘idols’ given up by converts to Christianity. However, the museum also contained material from Africa, China, India, Madagascar and the Americas. This paper demonstrates some of the ways in which collections from different areas of the world reflected particular histories of local missionary activity, but also came to influence missionary collecting practices in other regions of the globe. Rather than attempting to characterize missionary collecting as a single practice, this paper pays attention to the collections of a single missionary museum: it aims to suggest some of the ways in which motivations for collecting and the significance of collections for the London Missionary Society shifted over the course of the long nineteenth century.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 109-128 |
Number of pages | 20 |
Journal | Journal of the History of Collections |
Early online date | 20 Feb 2016 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1 Mar 2017 |
Profiles
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Chris Wingfield
- Sainsbury Research Unit for the Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas - Associate Professor in the Arts of Africa
- Centre for African Art and Archaeology - Member
Person: Research Group Member, Academic, Teaching & Research