Predelli, Line Nyhagen

About the author: Line Nyhagen Predelli is a researcher at the Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research in Norway. Having earned her doctorate in sociology from the University of Southern California, Nyhagen Predelli does research on gender, religion, immigration, and ethnic relations.

Issues of Gender, Race, and Class in the Norwegian Missionary Society in Nineteenth-Century Norway and Madagascar

2003 0-7734-6640-1
With a focus on missionary women and men in the Norwegian Missionary Society in Madagascar and Norway, this study provides an in-depth examination of how gender relations are negotiated in a religious organization. The time period covered (1860-1910) coincides with colonial efforts of major European states. The book also discusses how aspects of class, race and sexuality must be taken into account in studies of gender relations in the missionary movement. It shows, for example, how marriage propositions and sexual relations between white missionaries and black converts were dealt with by the mission organization in Madagascar. Other topics include the attempts of Norwegian missionary women to impart a form of domesticity to Malagasy girls, their efforts to establish direct links with the broader feminist movement, and the gradual democratization of the mission organization both in Norway and Madagascar.