Objects of Catholic Conversion in Colonial Buganda
A Study of the Miraculous Medal
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3932128 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Alison Bennett (0000-0002-8525-5322, Hallworth Fellow in Political Economy, University of Manchester Manchester UK, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 51 |
| Issue | 1-2 |
| Pages | 27-64 |
| Publication date | 2022-02-16 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Religion in Africa (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0022-4200 • E-ISSN: 1570-0666 |
| Publisher | Walter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE) |
| DOI | 10.1163/15700666-12340197 |
| OpenAlex | W3215134036 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 21 |
Adorned with an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary and other Christian emblems and text, the miraculous medal has been an important object of Catholic intercessory prayer since the mid-nineteenth century. The religious and social history of the medal in Europe is relatively well known. However, few scholars have connected the medal's emergence with the spread of the European mission in the wake of nineteenth-century colonial expansion. This article uses the medal to shed new light on the material, corporeal, and gendered aspects of the Catholic Christianization of present-day Buganda, where it fulfilled a variety of functions for missionaries and Baganda alike. For missionaries it served as a key item for proselytizing and propaganda. For some Baganda, meanwhile, it played pivotal roles in a newly emerging form of local religious identity politics. Object analysis of an extant version from Buganda also reveals the medal's material diversity and offers important insight into local agency in the reception and reshaping of Catholic objects. Thus when viewed in non-European contexts, miraculous medals were far more dynamic and multifaceted than has previously been understood
Aesthetics · Archaeology · Art · Art history · Colonialism · Identity (music · Medal · Political science · Politics · African history and culture studies · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · History · Law · Philosophy · Religious studies
Political Activism and Other Life Forms in Colonial Buganda
African Materials in Vincentian Archives
National Bodies, Unspeakable Acts
Missionary Discourses of Difference
Missionary Writing and Empire, 1800-1860
Kings, Cattle and Blacksmiths
Ethnic Patriotism and the East African Revival
Writing the History of African Christianity
Mission, Church and State in a Colonial Setting
Of Revelation and Revolution
Our Lady of Congo
Mission madonnas imaging an african mother of god
Symbolism and the social contexts of iron production in Karagwe
Local communities, politics and the management of the Kasubi tombs, Uganda
Iron Technology in East Africa
Eyewitness Accounts of Buganda History
Of Revelation and Revolution, Volume 1
Colonial Evangelism
African Religions and Philosophy
The museum of the mind
Colonialism, corporeality and character
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |