Narrating a congo missionary childhood (1958 - 1964) : memory and meaning examined through a creative non-fiction text and exegesis

Abstract

This study analyses the transnational childhood experience of the daughter of medical missionaries who worked for the Baptist Missionary Society (BMS) in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) between 1958 and 1964. Through a creative non-fiction text and exegesis, the thesis examines family history and missionary trauma within a context of rapid social change punctuated by postcolonial violence and international Cold War meddling in Africa. In particular, the thesis analyses the hegemonic silencing forces that worked against the sharing of this narrative. These include: the complex but largely unknown history of the DRC; the marginalisation of missionary experience in a postcolonial, post-Christian world; the gendered and institutionalised silencing reinforced by Christian organisations; postcolonial guilt; and, the ethical complexities of writing about self and family from a contested subject position. The academic scholarship on the impact of parents' transnational missionary work on their children is limited. In particular, the effect of exposure to trauma on missionaries and their children is under researched. Furthermore, much of the available scholarship is located in missionary or church-based publications, which limits access to it and debate by a wider academic audience. Some of the frameworks used to describe the experiences of missionaries' children - such as the categories of chameleon, wallflower and screamer - need further analysis. These widely used descriptors may also contribute to silencing some narratives and masking signs of trauma. Drawing on scholarship from a variety of fields including memory studies, history, and life writing, the thesis considers the personal and public roles of memory objects. For some, the act of creating a memory object such as a text can be a powerful experience of silence breaking and healing. Moreover, moving such a memory object from the personal sphere to a shared - community or public - space can, through the process of bearing witness, function as a therapeutic intervention. This was not the purpose of the study, but rather an unexpected by-product of undertaking a thesis of this nature. However, writing a creative non-fiction text alone was insufficient to uncover the hegemonic forces that combined to silence this narrative. The search for understanding was enhanced through critical self-reflection facilitated by engagement with scholarly academic literature in a range of relevant fields; analysis of archival material; and, through interviewing key individuals connected with events described in the narrative. This resulting work addresses the gaps and impasse that inhere in current understandings of the history of missionary life in the Democratic Republic of Congo.