Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Tanzania – Colonial influence – History'

The primary aim of this thesis is to contribute to ongoing historical research into migration to and settlement in Australia by Scots. It achieves this by identifying and examining letters sent from the colonies in New South Wales which were printed in historic Scottish newspapers between 1820 and 1850. In examining the material, this thesis argues that the letters had potential to influence emigration decisions by Scots. The study shows some of the ways in which New South Wales was reported in the Scottish press and compares those reports with conditions in Scotland at the time. The comparisons and analyses of the letters, with consideration of their authors and likely readers as well as the newspapers in which they were printed demonstrate that the letters did have potential to influence emigration decisions. Its particular contribution to knowledge arises from demonstrating how mostly private letters which became publicly available through publication in newspapers had potential to influence emigrants’ decisions about moving to Australia. Rather than claiming direct evidence of the publication of particular letters as having influenced emigration, it shows how reporting of conditions in Australia when set into a context of contemporary events and conditions in Scotland had potential to influence decisions. It is grounded in the body of historical research about colonial Australia and sits within this Australian historiographical context. Given the motivations and attractions of Scots to colonial Australia this thesis also engages with techniques and theoretical approaches associated with Scottish diaspora studies, an area of research that often emphasises other Scottish migration patterns to Canada, New Zealand and the USA. When considered together both of these historiographical approaches lend themselves to primary source material analysis and a methodological approach that this doctoral study uses to examine the motivations of Scots who migrated to colonial Australia.
Doctor of Philosophy

L’objectif de cette recherche est de reconstituer la culture ou les cultures vestimentaire(s) dans les Philippines espagnoles au XIXe siècle et de mettre en exergue l’importance du vêtement dans cette société coloniale. Cette étude explore les interactions, uniques et complexes, entre le vêtement et les apparences, d’une part, et, d’autre part, les catégories raciales, sociales et culturelles dans le contexte des changements sociaux, culturels et économiques qui sont intervenus entre 1820 et 1896. L’objectif est de restituer la vie coloniale en s’appuyant sur le vêtement dans la mesure où il permet d’aborder de nombreux problèmes raciaux, sociaux, économiques et de genre qui agitent les Philippines de cette époque. Pour la première fois, l’étude des vêtements est ici utilisée pour comprendre les changements socio-culturels et économiques qui sont intervenus dans la société coloniale des Philippines au XIXe siècle. Les différents groupes raciaux et sociaux philippins sous domination espagnole sont analysés à travers leurs vêtements. Cette étude des pratiques vestimentaires aux Philippines s’inscrit dans le contexte d'une société coloniale pluriethnique et pluriculturelle. Après des siècles de colonisations, les Philippines du XIXe siècle étaient – et, dans une certaine mesure, restent – un amalgame de cultures autochtone, occidentale et chinoise. L’analyse des pratiques vestimentaires comme élément de l’histoire coloniale s’inscrit, plus largement, dans l’étude des interactions culturelles, des modes de vie coloniaux, des relations humaines et des comportements sociaux. Le vêtement et les apparences ont été analysés avec l’objectif de mieux comprendre les hiérarchies ethniques, sociales et de genre à cette époque. Cette recherche prétend dépasser les frontières académiques entre les catégories des études philippines, de l’histoire coloniale et de l’étude du vêtement
The purpose of this research is to reconstruct the clothing culture of 19th century Spanish Philippines and to discover the importance of dress in Philippine colonial society. This study explores the unique and complex interplay of clothing and appearance with race, class and culture in the context of the social, cultural and economic changes that took place between 1820 and 1896. The objective is to recreate an impression of colonial life by turning to clothes to provide insights on a wide range of race, class, gender and economic issues. For the first time, this uses the study of clothing to understand the socio-cultural and economic changes that took place in 19th century Philippine colonial society. The different racial and social groups of the Philippines under Spanish colonization were analyzed in light of their clothing. This locates the study of Philippine clothing practices in the context of a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural colonial society. After centuries of colonization, 19th century Philippines was – and continues to be- an amalgam of indigenous, Western and Chinese cultures. This study of clothing practices as an element of colonial life points to a broader study of cultural interactions, colonial lifestyles, human relations and social behavior. Clothing and appearance were analyzed to understand the ethnic, social and gender hierarchies of that period. This work crosses the frontiers between the disciplines of Philippine studies, colonial history and costume studies

This thesis explores the nature and extent of political party institutionalization in Kenya. More specifically, it focuses on the four dimensions of party institutionalization, namely organizational systemness, value-infusion, decisional autonomy and reification. The study itself is largely located within the historical-institutionalist school of thought, with particular emphasis on the path dependency strand of this theoretical framework. However, the study also employs a political economy approach. It recognizes that the development trajectory of party politics in Kenya did not evolve in a vacuum but within a particular historical-institutional and political-economic context. The thesis advances the notion that those current low levels of party institutionalization that are evident in almost all parties, and the relatively peripheral role that they have in Kenya's governance can be traced to Kenya's colonial and post-colonial political history, the resource poor environment and the onset of globalization.

At the end of the 1920s in Kenya, Protestant Missionaries, government authorities and Christian Kikuyu clashed when missionaries sought to prohibit female circumcision among their adherents. The mission discourse emphasised the negative moral and physical effects of female circumcision on individual women, while that of the government stressed the function of female circumcision in maintaining the body-politic. The colonial discourse, as whole, is marked by a striking division between issues concerning women and those deemed political. Thus, women seldom appear as actors in historical narratives of the female circumcision controversy, which is generally represented as a nationalist movement initiated by, and of concern to, men.
This thesis presents alternate readings of the relevant colonial records. By examining the processes that functioned to exclude women from the political discourse it provides a different interpretation of the controversy as one in which women did indeed play a central political role, indirectly controlling the issue through men, who were regarded by the colonialists as the legitimate representatives of tribal interests. The thesis explores indirect methods of eliciting the perspectives of women which are muted or absent from the historical record.

Thesis (DTh)--Stellenbosch University, 2000
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Many people are taking a keen interest in the growth of the Korean Church, and many research results are appearing. However, when dealing with the growth of Korean churches, account should be taken of the fact that this growth can only be fully understood and explained when studied against the historical background of the church's suffering in Korea. The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the effect of the japanese colonial rule in Korea and in particular the impact caused by the introduction of a central element in japanese national religion, namely Shintoism. Resistance to the Shinto shrine ceremonies resulted in the church being persecuted in various ways, and this had an effect on the life as well as the growth of the Presbyterian Church in Korea. Chapter one of this dissertation compnses of the introduction, which deals with the research problem, purpose of the research, hypothesis, delimitations of the research, assumptions, definition of terms and proposed outline of the study. Chapter two provides a historical overview of the context of the Korean Presbyterian Church under japanese colonial rule (1910-1945), so as to gain an understanding of the historical background of the Korean Presbyterian Church. The history of the Korean Presbyterian Church up to 1945 can be divided into four different periods, according to certain significant events as phases in its life: the rise of the Church (1884-1907), the revival of the Church(1907-1912), growing confrontation (1912-1935), and persecution of the Church (1935-1945). These four periods are briefly described and analysed, paying particular attention to the Japanese period. Chapter three presents an analysis of the growth of the Presbyterian Church in Korea under Japanese colonial rule. This is done from a missiological perspective, in terms of the witness and growth of the church. The facts of church growth, the reasons for church growth and problems affecting church growth are discussed. The latter includes the problem of the influence of the traditional Shamanistic faith, the issue of the social involvement of the church and the problem of pro- Japanese attitudes in the church. Chapter four deals with the history and character of Shintoism and the Korean Christians' conflict with it. The first section discusses the types, standardization and liturgical structure of Shrine rites. The second part analyses the resistance of the Korean Presbyterian Church to the imposition of Shintoism which led, on the one hand, to a sharp division within the church, on the other hand, to conflict and subsequent persecution of those who chose to resist Shinto shrine obeisance. Chapter five deals with the witness of faith, on the part of those who resisted the shrine rites. This is done especially by presenting several studies of Korean Christian resistance leaders, and examines their ministry and views in order to determine reasons why they resisted Shintoism. The case studies represent both North and South Korea, as well as Manchuria. In conclusion, chapter SIX exammes the effects of Shinto persecution on the growth of Presbyterian Church in Korea, companng anti-Shinto with the pro-Shinto shrine groups. And the findings reveal that the Shinto shrine issue had certain specific long term effects on the Presbyterian Church in Korea, inter alia, in terms of growth patterns and membership trends.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: DIE IMPAK VAN DIE JAPANNESE KOLONIALE BEWIND OP DIE GETUIENIS EN GROEI VAN DIE KOREAANSE PRESBITERIAANSE KERK Daar heers vandag 'n wye en lewendige belangstelling in die groei van die Koreaanse kerk, met die gevolg dat baie navorsingsresultate nou die lig sien. Maar, wanneer die groei in die Koreaanse Kerke ondersoek word, moet rekening gehou word met die feit dat hierdie groei slegs volledig verstaan en gemterpreteer kan word teen die historiese agtergrond van die kerk se lyding in Korea. Die doel van hierdie verhandeling is om die effek van die Japannese koloniale bewind in Korea te ondersoek en, in besonder, die impak veroorsaak deur die invoer van 'n sentrale element in die Japannese nasionale geloof, naamlik Sjintoisrne. Die gevolg van verset teen die Sjinto - heiligdom seremonies was vervolging van die kerk op verskeie wyses, en dit het die lewe sowel as die groei van die Presbiteriaanse Kerk in Korea beinvloed. Hoofstuk 1 sluit in die inleiding wat handel oor die navorsingsprobleem, doel van hierdie navorsing, hipotese, afbakening van die navorsing, uitgangspunte, begripsomskrywing en voorgestelde inhoudsuitreensetting. Hoofstuk 2 bied 'n historiese oorsig oor die konteks van die Koreaanse Presbiteriaanse Kerk onder Japannese koloniale bewind (1910-1945), om sodoende 'n begrip van die historiese agtergrond van die Koreaanse Presbiteriaanse Kerk te bewerkstellig. Die geskiedenis van die Koreaanse Presbiteriaanse Kerk tot 1945 kan in vier verskillende periodes verdeel word volgens sekere betekenisvolle gebeure of stadiums in die lewe van die Kerk: die opkoms van die Kerk (1884-1907), die herlewing van die Kerk (1907-1912), groeiende konfrontasie (1912-1935) en vervolging van die Kerk (1935-1945). Hierdie vier peri odes word kortliks beskryf en ontleed, met besondere aandag aan die Japannese periode. Hoofstuk 3 bied 'n analise van die groei van die Presbiteriaanse Kerk in Korea onder Japannese koloniale bewind. Dit geskied vanuit 'n missiologiese perspektief met betrekking tot die getuienis en groei van die Kerk. Besonderhede oor kerkgroei, die redes hiervoor en probleme wat die groei beinvloed, word bespreek. Laasgenoemde sluit in die vraag na die invloed van die tradisionele Sjamanistiese geloof, die sosiale betrokkenheid van die Kerk en die probleem van pro-Japannese standpunte in die Kerk. Hoofstuk 4 handel oor die geskiedenis en karakter van Sjintoisme en die Koreaanse Christene se verset daarteen. Die eerste deel bespreek die tipes, standaardisering en liturgiese struktuur van die heiligdom rites. Die tweede deel ontleed die Koreaanse Presbiteriaanse Kerk se verset teen die afdwing van Sjintoisme wat, aan die een kant, lei tot 'n skerp verdeling binne die Kerk, en, aan die ander kant, tot konflik en die daaropvolgende vervolging van die mense wat gekies het om hul te verset teen eerbetoningsrites in Sjinto heiligdomme. Hoofstuk 5 behandel die geloofsgetuienis van die wat hul teen eerbetoningsrites verset het. Dit geskied veral deur verskeie gevallestudies van Koreaanse Christen versetleiers. Die bediening en die sienswyse van hierdie leiers word ondersoek om sodoende die redes vir hul verset teen Sjintoisme vas te stel. Die gevallestudies verteenwoordig sowel Noord- as Suid-Korea, asook Mantjoerye. Ten slotte ondersoek hoofstuk 6 die effek van Sjinto vervolging op die groei van die Presbiteriaanse Kerk in Korea, en vergelyk anti-Sjinto'istiese met die pro-Sjintoistiese groepe. Die bevindinge dui daarop dat die Sjinto heiligdom-geskilpunt sekere langtermyn gevolge vir die Presbiteriaanse Kerk in Korea gehad het, onder andere met betrekking tot groeipatrone en lidmaatskapstendense.

Comment le tourisme s’est-il développé dans un territoire en pleine expansion coloniale ? Comment tourisme et colonisation se sont-ils conjugués ? Quel lien peut-on établir entre ces deux dynamiques ? C’est ce à quoi cette thèse tente de répondre en démontrant l’instrumentalisation du tourisme par les politiques coloniales. Elle se divise en sept chapitres abordant successivement le transfert des pratiques touristiques de l’Europe à l’Indochine, leurs implantations, leurs intégrations aux politiques de mise en valeur des années 1920, les conséquences spatiales de leurs implantations (construction de voies de communication et d’hébergements hôteliers) et la communication instaurée par l’Etat pour promouvoir l’Indochine comme une destination touristique auprès des Indochinois comme des touristes étrangers.
How did tourism develop in a rapidly expanding colonial territory? How were tourism and colonization combined? What links were established between these two processes? These are the questions that this thesis addresses by demonstrating the exploitation of tourism by colonial policies. This thesis is divided into seven chapters dealing successively with the transfer of European tourism practices to Indochina, their location, their integration into the politics of territorial development in the 1920s, the spatial consequences of their implementation (construction of roads and hotel accommodation), and the attempts of the State to promote Indochina as a touristic destination for both Indochinese and foreign tourists alike.

Despite the current interest in food studies, little is known about the culinary history of Central and Southern Africa. Using the methods of historical-comparative linguistics, this dissertation provides the first insights into the culinary traditions of early Bantu speech communities. The dissertation focuses on the history of staple starch food preparations, more specifically, the history of porridge and the integration of cassava into Kongo culinary traditions.
Doctorat en Langues et lettres
info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Explains how Afro-Cuban culture influenced African-American jazzmen and led to the formation of Afro-Cuban or Latin jazz in 1947 by Dizzy Gillespie and Chano Pozo. Explores the musical connections between the physical plane of Cuba and the United States, and the esoteric spiritual world of the orishas and myths coming to life in sacred and secular music forms.

Ce travail se propose d’étudier l’histoire de l’ethnie des Indiens de Copiapo, groupe situé au Chili, dans la vallée de Copiapo, aux marges méridionales du désert d’Atacama. C’est ainsi que la période abordée (1544-1806) répond au développement-même de ce groupe durant la période coloniale, depuis sa création en tant que groupe d’encomienda jusqu’à sa disparition. En effet, ce groupe apparaît lorsque le gouverneur du Royaume du Chili don Pedro de Valdivia décide d’octroyer en encomienda l’ensemble des habitants de la vallée, qui constituaient jusqu’alors une ethnie, les transformant en tributaires et Indiens de service, et étant emmenés à vivre sous la tutelle politique et économique de leur encomendero, déracinés de la majorité de leur territoire ancestral. Ce système juridique et son application au Chili d’une manière générale, et à Copiapo d’une façon plus spécifique, provoqua toute une série de ruptures au niveau même des structures sociales de ce groupe : déclin démographique rapide, perte des terres communautaires, changement des formes politiques, perte de la langue et de la religion. A travers l’étude du développement de ces différents processus, nous montrons comment cette ethnie disparut, car perdant l’ensemble des caractéristiques de leur identité et des moyens qui leur auraient permis de se reformuler en tant que communauté
The purpose of this work is to study the history of Copiapo Indians ethnic group, situated in Chile, specifically in the valley of Copiapo, in the southern borders of the Atacama Desert. Thus the treaty period (1544-1806) follows the development of this group during the Colony, from its birth as an encomienda to its disappearance. Indeed, this group appears on the time that the governor of the Kingdom of Chile, Don Pedro de Valdivia decided to entrust all the inhabitants of the valley on a single encomienda, which were previously an ethnic group, transforming them into fiscal persons and servant Indians, and taken to live under the political and economic tutelage of their encomenderos, uprooted from the majority of their ancestral territory. This legal system and its application in Chile in general, and specifically in Copiapo, triggered a series of ruptures at the level of the social structures of this group: rapid population decline, loss of community lands, changing political forms, loss of language and religion. Through the study of the development of these various processes, we show how this ethnic group disappeared, having lost the feature set of its identity and the means that would have allowed them to rebuild as a community.Keywords :
El objetivo de este trabajo es estudiar la historia de la etnia de los Indios de Copiapó, grupo situado en Chile, específicamente en el valle de Copiapó, en los márgenes meridionales del desierto de Atacama. Es así que el periodo tratado (1544-1806) responde al desarrollo mismo de este grupo durante la Colonia, desde su nacimiento como grupo encomendado hasta su desaparición. En efecto, esta grupo aparece en el momento en el que el gobernador del Reino de Chile don Pedro de Valdivia decide encomendar a todos los habitantes del valle, que hasta entonces conformaban una etnia, transformándolos en tributarios e indios de servicio, y llevados a vivir bajo la tutela política y económica de su encomendero, desarraigados de gran parte de su territorio ancestral. Este sistema jurídico y su aplicación en Chile de forma general, y en Copiapó específicamente, provocó una serie de rupturas a nivel de las estructuras sociales de este grupo: veloz descenso demográfico, pérdida de las tierras comunitarias, cambio de las formas políticas, pérdida de la lengua y de la religión. A través del estudio del desarrollo de estos diferentes procesos, mostramos cómo esta etnia desapareció, al haber perdido el conjunto de características de su identidad y de los medios que les habrían permitido reconstruirse como comunidad

Defence date: 29 October 2015
Examining Board: Prof. Dr. Sebastian Conrad, Freie Universität Berlin (EUI); Prof. Dr. Andreas Eckert, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin (External supervisor); Prof. Dr. Ulrike Lindner, Universität zu Köln (External supervisor); Prof. Dr. Dirk Moses, European University Institute.
The central question posed in this project is: In what way did the colonial labor regime in German East Africa correspond with the formation of a global color line and the growing debates over the relationship between race and labor at the end of the nineteenth century? The division between ‘wanted’ and ‘unwanted’ subalterns made by colonial rulers is the topic around which this project is structured. By examining three case studies, this project highlights the emergence of a colonial labor order in early colonial Tanzania. In doing so, it shows the discursive entanglements that bound local processes to global, transregional, inter-imperial, and metropolitan phenomena. The first chapter focuses on the recruitment and employment of Asian indentured laborers on plantations owned by the German-­East African Plantation Company, and so raises questions regarding global migration as well as free and unfree labor during High Imperialism. The second chapter contextualizes the “education of the Negro to work” as a result of a transatlantic knowledge exchange and ties this process to the question of school policy in colonial Tanzania. The chapter then goes on to analyze the recruitment policy of state-run schools in which Muslims, first and foremost, were to be trained as subaltern civil servants. The third chapter in turn focuses on unwanted subalterns and contextualizes the deportation of poor whites who were seen as a danger to both the colonial (labor) regime, as well as to the “white prestige” of colonial rulers. The project will demonstrate that this was a broader problem and that the legislative solution ultimately reached in German East Africa has to be analyzed within the context of imperial border regimes.

Recent scholarship on the renewed Sonderweg theory does not approach the debate with a comparative analysis. This thesis therefore presents a new argument looking at the influence of British and Afrikaner tensions in South Africa, culminating in the South African War of 1899-1902, and how their treatment of the various African peoples in their own colony influenced German South-West African colonial native policy and the larger social hierarchy within the settler colony. In analyzing the language of scholarly journals, magazine articles, and other publications of the period, one can see the direct influence of the Afrikaners, including South African Boers, on German South-West African settlers, and their eugenically infused discussion of Herero, Nama, and Bastards, within their new home. Furthermore, the relations between the German settlers and the British settlers and colonial officials in the neighboring colony serve as a case-study of the larger rivalry between Berlin and London that would later culminate in World War I. In looking at how this British colony influenced German South-West Africa in socially, politically, economically, and scientifically, one can place this new research within the context of the renewed Sonderweg debated amongst scholars like Isabel Hull and George Steinmetz, extending the critique that Steinmetz argued in The Devil’s Handwriting: Precoloniality and the German State in Qingdao, Samoa, and South-West Africa

Defence date: 9 December 2015
Examining Board: Professor Stephen Smith (EUI Supervisor); Professor Laura Lee Downs, EUI; Professor Romain Bertrand, Sciences Po; Professor Daniel Branch, Warwick University.
This thesis explores the institutional legacy of colonialism through the history of private members clubs in Kenya. In this colony, clubs developed as institutions which were crucial in assimilating Europeans to a race-based, ruling community. Funded and managed by a settler elite of British aristocrats and officers, clubs institutionalized European unity. This was fostered by the rivalry of Asian migrants, whose claims for respectability and equal rights accelerated settlers' cohesion along both political and cultural lines. Thanks to a very bureaucratic apparatus, clubs smoothened European class differences ; they fostered a peculiar style of sociability, unique to the colonial context. Clubs were seen by Europeans as institutions which epitomized the virtues of British civilization against native customs. In the mid-1940s, a group of European liberals thought that opening a multi-racial club in Nairobi would expose educated Africans to the refinements of such sociability. The United Kenya Club only highlighted the strength of racial prejudice. It gave rise to much discomfort and awkwardness among its members, which reflected the contrast between European will to promote moderate, educated Africans and the brutality by which Kenya's most radical nationalists were crushed during the Mau Mau War. If Africans eventually took interest in joining European clubs, it was because these institutions had become entwined with state power. Settlers and officials met in clubs to discuss politics, within an Empire of which decorum, epitomized during official visits, almost recognized European clubs as official buildings. Africans eventually became members, torn between a nationalist rejection of the colonial past and the will to join institutions that conferred prestige and afforded connections. They abandoned Gilbert & Sullivan operas, yet they took over golf. On Kenya's fairways, white domination was challenged by black triumphs, while African elites appropriated clubs as an attribute of class, and no longer race, distinction.

Au tournant du XXe siècle, la neurasthénie – ou épuisement nerveux – est devenue une maladie populaire en Occident et jusqu’au Japon en raison de son association avec la modernité. De nombreux rapprochements ont été faits entre ce diagnostic introduit en 1869 aux États-Unis et certaines maladies contemporaines comme la dépression, le syndrome de fatigue chronique, l’épuisement professionnel et toute la panoplie des maladies causées par le stress. Les transformations socioculturelles qu’a connues le Viêt Nam sous colonisation, principalement au cours des décennies 1920 et 1930, ont été propices à la dissémination du langage des nerfs et à l’appropriation du diagnostic de neurasthénie. Ce mémoire de maîtrise en histoire se penche sur les transformations sociales survenues sous le gouvernement colonial français, dont l’urbanisation et l’instruction publique, au milieu desquelles ont émergé les nouvelles classes moyennes urbaines qui ont adopté le diagnostic de neurasthénie. À partir de la presse vietnamienne de la période, ce travail met l’accent sur l’appropriation, les causes et les traitements de la maladie. Utilisant une approche comparant la neurasthénie en Occident, au Japon et en Chine, pour ensuite présenter son entrée au Viêt Nam, il montre que la domination et donc la subalternité ont compliqué l’accès des colonisés au diagnostic de la maladie moderne neurasthénie, de même qu’à la modernité. Il fournit toutefois un éclairage sur les débuts de l’histoire du diagnostic, encore utilisé de nos jours au Viêt Nam, d’une maladie appelée « la maladie de l’époque ».
At the turn of the 20th century, the diagnostic term neurasthenia – or nervous exhaustion coined by American neurologist George Miller Beard in 1869 – was associated with modern civilization. Hence, the term rapidly spread to most Western countries and as far as Japan. Our contemporary language of stress, burn-out, depression and chronic fatigue syndrome has a history that goes back to the birth of the term neurasthenia. As Vietnam underwent deep sociocultural transformations during the French colonial era, especially during the 1920s and 1930s, life conditions became increasingly conducive to the dissemination of the language of nerves and to the appropriation of the term neurasthenia by middle class Vietnamese. This Master’s thesis on the early history of neurasthenia in Vietnam looks into the social transformations effected by the French colonial government, mainly urbanization and public education, which lead to the emergence of a new vietnamese urban middle class. Based on the vietnamese press of the period, it analyzes the appropriation of the diagnostic term neurasthenia by the Vietnamese, the causes to which they attributed neurasthenia, as well as the main treatments proposed by Vietnamese doctors. After comparing how neurasthenia was appropriated in a few Western countries, as well as in Japan and China, and then showing its appropriation in Vietnam, it shows that colonized status meant a somehow limited access to the “modern” disease neurasthenia, somehow similar to the access to “modernity”, due to political domination. The thesis then sheds light on the early history of a diagnosis still used nowadays in Vietnam, of a disease still called there “the disease of our time”.

The study addresses from a sociocultural-historical, in particular a missiological and medical perspective the question if Catholic hospitals in Matabeleland, affected by the dramatic down-turn of Zimbabwe’s economy since 2000, did whatever they could to continue offering quality services to their patients. It starts with a portrayal of the emergence of secular modernity in the North-Atlantic World, as regards its view of the world as solely governed by natural laws, and of people as capable of taking destiny into their own hands, unperturbed by spiritual forces. The question is explored how the Christian Occident could end up there, following its development through the Middle Ages, and its expansion by missionary activity, by preaching the Word, but also by military force. Next, the achievements of pre-1900 Western medicine are examined, to identify if/how missionaries in Africa could have benefited. The study describes how professional medicine did not become part of the early Zambesi Mission, not because of its curative shortcomings, but for spiritual reasons, insofar as the Jesuits did not follow the European trend to let worldly well-being take the place of eternal salvation. Vis-à-vis their other-than-modern view of life, suffering, and (self-)sacrifice, the promises of medicine appeared just trivial. Submissiveness to authority, both ecclesiastical and worldly, is identified as the core principle that informed the Jesuits’ educational approach towards Africans in all their efforts at conversions. The missionaries thereby colluded with colonialist thinking, in not attempting to make their pupils grow into self-confident, independent thinkers in their own right. In this educational tradition, grafted onto a pre-modern local culture, the study finds the reason why Zimbabwean medical staff, as managers of their clinics or hospitals, have shown little readiness to proactively prioritise the intrinsic needs of their institutions and push for corrective measures, prepared even to challenge their superiors when encountering aberrations in the health system, locally as well as higher up. The study asks if the Church could have opted for a different educational approach, considering the prevailing socio-economic and cultural framework conditions; finally, which options present-day Zimbabweans have to choose from, regarding their country’s future development.
Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology
D. Th. (Missiology)