Protestant missionaries in Dutch New Guinea (1864–1906)
Why would a gender historian concern themselves with missionary work? Or a historian of colonial missions with gender? Geertje Mak wrote a microhistory of a handful of missionary couples, their children, and their many Papuan foster children, who had been bought out of slavery. The latter play a central role in the question of how ‘good intentions’ could simultaneously support the Dutch colonial project. Sexuality, upbringing and the household – in the sense of oikos – were central. Ultimately, it was about the formation of a new Christian Papuan lineage. How did Papuans react to all this at the time?
About Geertje Mak
Geertje Mak is professor Gender History at the University of Amsterdam and senior researcher at KNAW-NL-Lab. She published Huishouden in Nieuw-Guinea. Zending en het kolonialisme van goede bedoelingen.
