Paper short abstract:

This paper interrogates missionary films in British colonial film archives and assesses their ethnographic value as documents of missionary activities in the colonies. It explores how these films complicate our historical understanding of the missionary encounter within British colonial enterprise.

Paper long abstract:

Missionary films form a significant part of the colonial film archive. They mainly comprise of 16mm films made by single denominations for non-theatrical distribution and some 35 mm films made by interdenominational collaborations for theatrical release, produced throughout the first half of the twentieth century. They document life at Christian missions in the colonies, their churches, hospitals and schools, and portray the everyday activities of missionaries and of the subjects who frequented their missions. The films were made mainly in order to appeal for funds from their home-based congregations and to justify their Christian mission of conversion and salvation. These films are often evangelical in tone and point of view and they construct narratives of racial difference and European superiority towards the inhabitants of the colonies where the missions were based. The films’ visual and textual rhetoric ranges from humanistic condescension to dehumanising attitudes that make these films often difficult to view.

Many of these collections now languish in film archives, their content incongruent with present-day beliefs and times. This paper asks what we might learn from studying these films and how we can interrogate and intervene in this visual archive in order to contribute to decolonising histories of colonial power. It assesses the films’ ethnographic value as documents of missionary activities in the colonies and explores how these films might complicate our historical understanding of the missionary encounter and the missions’ relationship with British colonial enterprise and governance.