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Fipa Families Reproduction and Catholic Evangelization in Nkansi, Ufipa, 1880-1960

Kathleen R. Smythe

Book Code: E07112

ISBN: 0-325-07112-8

ISBN-13: 978-0-325-07112-1

DOI:

236 pages, photos

Heinemann

Publication: 5/30/2006

List Price: $89.95 (UK Sterling Price: £49.95)

Availability: In Stock

Media Type: Hardcover

Also Available: Paperback

Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4

Subjects:

Series Title: Social History of Africa

Description: Ufipa, a labor reserve for Tanganyika, witnessed minimal colonial development. Instead, evangelization by White Fathers' Catholic missionaries began in the 1870s. By the 1950s, the missionaries had secured varying degrees of political, economic and social authority in the region, witnessed by the fact that the vast majority of Fipa had converted to Catholicism. Fipa Families examines how this happened from the Fipa perspective.
Initially, employees of the mission sought to oversee the education and moral upbringing of at least one child from each family, substituting boarding school for the care relatives would otherwise have provided. A few mission parents even opted to forego the multiple benefits of grandchildren so a child could pursue the celibate path of a religious vocation.
The opportunities of the Catholic Church complemented and competed with Fipa processes of social and biological reproduction, and Catholicism became part of the fabric of Fipa society because of, and despite, its resonance with Fipa culture. At the heart of both Fipa and missionary concerns were the processes of socialization (social reproduction) and biological reproduction, processes carried out within the context of the family.
Written primarily for scholars and students of African colonial history, mission history, and family and childhood history, this study is based on a rich collection of oral and documentary sources. Working with this wealth of information, Smythe breaks new ground in placing African social and moral concerns parallel to those of missionaries, resurrecting the study of the family (rather than kinship, lineage, or clan) within African history, and demonstrating at the level of the family and village the ways in which ideas of socialization, reproduction, and education were challenged and re-created in the colonial context in Ufipa. Fipa Families examines the influence of Catholicism from the Fipa perspective. The opportunities offered by the Catholic Church both complemented and competed with Fipa processes of social and biological reproduction. Yet, at the heart of both Fipa and missionary concerns for cultural and religious perpetuation lay the processes of socialization (social reproduction) and biological reproduction--both processes carried out within the context of the family. It is with that context in mind that Smythe makes an argument based on resurrecting the study of the family within African history.

Table of Contents:

Introduction: Fipa Families
Church, Religion and State in Nkansi, 1880-1960
Where One Slept Mattered: Fipa Socialization and Cultural Perceptions of Growth in Nkansi, Ufipa
Home Away from Home: Generational Experiences
The Boarding School Experience: Baraza and Karema
Socializing Fipa Priests and Sisters
"Child of the Clan" or "Child of the Priests": Life Stories of Two Fipa Catholic Sisters
Conclusion: Fipa and Missionary Socialization
Bibliography

LC Card Number: 2006006172

LCC Class: BR115

Dewey Class: 266


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