Unpacking Missionary Collections

Abstract

Christian missionary collections have contributed much to the development of the exhibitionary complex, but have received significantly less notice than imperial states using violence to acquire collections, and subsequent demands for restitution. This introductory essay argues that researching missionary collecting and exhibiting requires a broad approach to the materiality of collections, to recognize the multilayered biographies of artifacts, the coeval relations between missionaries and (future) converts in the mission field, as well as how archives and collections form part of technologies of empire. This “unpacking” leads to a recognition, firstly, of the salient position of religion in those processes of collecting and exhibiting; secondly, the realization that converting people was accompanied by multitemporal and multidirectional processes of converting goods; and thirdly, that despite public assertions of Christian iconoclasm, these conversions always also included turning artifacts into desecrated, secular, or even commercial goods. We conclude by arguing that these processes, including their potential reversal, need to be taken into account when considering the future of these collections.