Studies in World Christianity 25.1

Guest edited by Corey L. Williams and Afe Adogame

Multiple identities are a standard feature of human culture and society. Everyone possesses what French sociologist Bernard Lahire has called an internal plurality (2011). As Lahire sees it, individuals are ‘the bearer[s] of heterogeneous habits, schemes, or dispositions which may be contrary or even contradictory to one another’ (2003: 344). Relatedly, in their comprehensive work on identity theory, Peter J. Burke and Jan E. Stets have argued that, ‘We take on many identities over the course of a lifetime, and at any point in time we have many identities that could be activated’ (2009: 131). In other words, everyone’s internal plurality includes multiple identities that can be activated for diverse purposes. (Continue reading the introduction here.)

Continue reading

CSWC Collections Used in BBC Documentary

Viewers of the BBC’s Scots in China with Neil Oliver were treated to a few images from the CSWC’s archives. The images show Scottish medical missionary Dugald Christie, Chinese medical assistants, and some unidentified workers wearing masks to protect them from the plague. Christie was born in Glencoe in 1855, studied medicine in Edinburgh, and went to China in 1882. A series of lantern slides on Christie’s life, including his three decades of missionary service in China, were acquired by the CSWC and included with other collections on the International Mission Photography Archive (IMPA). Producers from Matchlight, which produced Scots in China, found the images on IMPA and contacted our archivist, Kirsty Stewart. Always helpful, she was happy to provide them with the information they needed. They were used in a segment highlighting the work of the Scottish Churches’ China Group and the legacy of Scottish medical missionaries in China.

Dugald Christie as a Student, ca. 1880
Continue reading

Professor Lamin Sanneh: In Memoriam

The following tribute was written by Professor Sanneh’s longtime friend and colleague Professor Andrew F. Walls.

We have learned with sorrow of the passing, after a short illness, of Lamin Sanneh, D Willis James Professor of World Christianity at Yale University, co-founder and joint convener of the Yale-Edinburgh Group on the History of Missions and World Christianity. The Group’s annual conferences, meeting in Yale and Edinburgh alternately, have been an important feature of the life of our Centre.

Continue reading