Introduction: New Directions in the History of Missionsin Africa

This short article introduces a selection of papers originally presented at the conference, "Africans Meeting Missionaries: Rethinking Colonial Encounters," held at the University of Minnesota in May 1997. Until quite recently much of the scholarship on missions in Africa tended to reproduce early eighteenth- and nineteenth-century images of the colossal, all-powerful missionary. Whether celebrated as an heroic, civilizing agent in mission accounts or branded as a cultural imperialist in nationalist-era scholarship, the European missionary remained an actor scarcely soiled by the cultural commerce of the people on whom he worked. In short, African religious or political initiatives were seldom taken seriously. The papers which make up this collection give voice to and extend current debates surrounding the contested history (and future) of the missionary enterprise in Africa.