‘The Testimony Must Begin in the Home’: The Life of Salvation and the Remaking of Homes in the East African Revival in Southern Uganda, c. 1930-1955

Abstract

Abstract:The late colonial era in Uganda was not an easy time to keep families intact. Colonial officials, missionaries, and concerned East Africans offered their diagnoses of the problems and prescriptions for responding to the dilemma. In this context, Balokole Anglican revivalists articulated new patterns and ideals of family life. These new patterns of family life were not uniform across Uganda or East Africa, but they did share common characteristics that were derived from the spiritual disciplines and religious beliefs of the Balokole revival. As such, this essay argues that the revival movement was not simply a new message of eternal salvation or primarily a form of dissent, but rather a means through which a group of African Christians sought to address quotidian domestic problems and concerns of late-colonial East Africa.

Violence and intimacy in colonial and postcolonial Africa

“…Thus, the article advances existing scholarship on the colonial impact on the family, the importance of the domestic sphere in the colonial project, and contestations over modernity (cf. Chanock 1989;McClintock 1995;Geschiere and Rowlands 1996;Comaroff and Comaroff 1997;Stoler 2002;Awoh 2012;Orosz 2012;Bruner 2014;Sheik 2014;Nkwi 2015). In grappling with what Western modernity meant in an African context and struggling to align the mission civilisatrice with other considerations regarding religion, social order and labour needs, Kombo argues that violence was employed to 'domesticate' modernity and impose Western norms on intimate partner relationships.…”

Imperial debris, intimate partnerships and family law reform in Cameroon

“…A rich body of scholarship emphasizes the centrality of the regulation of the family and, more specifically, intimate partnerships to colonialism and, in turn, to the constitution of (Western) modernity (Comaroff and Comaroff 1997: 276-7;Stoler 2002;McClintock 1995;Sheik 2014;Bruner 2014). Some of the literature pays particular attention to the impact of missionary (and local convert) activities (Awoh 2012;Comaroff and Comaroff 1991;Nkwi 2015;Walker-Said 2018;Orosz 2002;, while other research focuses primarily on the work of colonial administrators (Schaper 2014;Burrill 2015;Sheik 2014).…”