The Location of Faith: Power, Gender and Spirituality in the 1883-84 Maloga Mission revival

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  • Claire Louise McLisky
The description and analysis of religious faith, whether as embodied experience or as the subject of academic inquiry, is a troubled undertaking at the best of times. It is particularly fraught in the context of settler-colonial Christian missions to Indigenous peoples, where historical distance and positional power dynamics disrupt our understandings even further. Whether seen as a form of control, a vehicle for new froms of self-expression, or a tool of liberation, spirituality is not something that can be easily dismissed, categorised, or even described. However, given the importance of Christian missions in the history of Aboriginal peoples and the continuing resonance of Christianity in many Aboriginal communities, the importance of undrstanding how and why faith worked on Aboriginal missions cannot be overestimated. This paper takes a fresh look at questions of belief through a consideration of the complex forces, including place, power and gender, which shaped one particularly important event in the history of Christian missions to Aboriginal peoples in Australia: the 1883-84 Maloga Misison revival.
Translated title of the contributionPlacering af tro: Magt, Køn og spiritualitet i 1883-1884 ved genoplivelsen af Maloga Missionen
Original languageEnglish
JournalHistory Australia (Print Edition)
Volume7
Issue number1
Pages (from-to)8.1-8.20
Number of pages81
ISSN1449-0854
Publication statusPublished - 2010

    Research areas

  • Faculty of Humanities - indigenous people, evangelicalism, evangelical revival, Christian mission, Australia

ID: 20990822