Entanglements of Empire: Missionaries, Maori, and the Question of the Body

by Tony Ballantyne

The first Protestant mission was established in New Zealand in 1814, initiating complex political, cultural, and economic entanglements with Māori. Tony Ballantyne shows how interest in missionary Christianity among influential Māori chiefs had far-reaching consequences for both groups. Deftly reconstructing cross-cultural translations and struggles over such concepts and practices as civilization, work, time and space, and gender, he identifies the physical body as the most contentious site of cultural engagement, with Māori and missionaries struggling over hygiene, tattooing, clothing, and sexual morality. Entanglements of Empire is particularly concerned with how, as a result of their encounters in the classroom, chapel, kitchen, and farmyard, Māori and the English mutually influenced each other’s worldviews. Concluding in 1840 with New Zealand’s formal colonization, this book offers an important contribution to debates over religion and empire.

Genres: History

376 pages, Hardcover

First published December 26, 2014

About the author

Tony Ballantyne (born Dunedin, 1972) is a New Zealand historian whose works examined the development of imperial intellectual and cultural life in Ireland, India, New Zealand, and Britain.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Reviews

[Thomas Isern · Rating 4 out of 5]

An assertion of imperial scholarship in the imperial framework: New Zealand matters. And it is a place, where material bodies and things center the encounters of ideas. Chapters are thematic. Many will cut to, or linger in, the sections on sexuality. I found the "Cultures of Death" chapter most fascinating (perhaps because at my house, we have been binge-watching episodes of Casketeers). Ballantyne goes into my course bib for New Zealand.

[Pete Cossey · Rating 2 out of 5]

Skim read, some chapters interesting and informative, other chapters not my cup of tea. Others will find book more useful than I.