Lancelot Threlkeld, Biraban, and the Colonial Bible in Australia

Bibliographic Data

ID2108563
AuthorsHilary M Carey (0000-0002-6998-0399, University of Newcastle Australia, corresponding author)
Year2010
Volume52
Issue2
Pages447-478
Publication date2010-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueComparative Studies in Society and History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0010-4175 • E-ISSN: 1475-2999
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0010417510000101
OpenAlexW2111320296
LanguageEN
Citations received10
References cited52

Ethnographers, historians, and linguists have argued for many years about the nature of the relationship between missionaries and their collaborators. Critics of missionary linguistics and education have pointed out that Bible translations were tools forged for the cultural conquest of native people and that missionary impacts on local cultures nearly always destructive and frequently overwhelming (Comaroff and Comaroff 1997; Rafael 1988; Sanneh 1989). Sociolinguistic readings of scripture translation have emphasized the cultural loss inherent in the act of translation and even seemingly benign activities such as dictionary making (Errington 2001; Peterson 1999; Tomlinson 2006). To make this point, Rafael (1988: xvii) notes the semantic links between the various Spanish words for conquest (conquista), conversion (conversión), and translation (traducción). Historians, on the other hand, have generally been more skeptical about the power of mere words to exert hegemonic pressure on colonized people and have emphasized the more tangible power of guns and commerce as agents of empire (Porter 2004). Few would deny the symbolic power of the Bible as a representation of colonial domination, as in the saying attributed to Archbishop Desmond Tutu by Cox (2008: 4): 'When the white man arrived, he had the Bible and we had the land; now, we have the Bible and he has the land

Ancient history · Archaeology · Archbishop · Art · Colonialism · CONQUEST · Empire · Hegemony · Literature · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Representation (politics · Skepticism · Sociology · Theology · Australian History and Society · Australian Indigenous Culture and History · Classics · History · Law · Multilingual Education and Policy · Philosophy

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