The diverging forms of material and immaterial missionary heritages and legacies.
For centuries, Christian missions have intervened in local religious communities, practices and ideas across the globe, generating encounters between Indigenous and Western cultures that have ranged from hostile confrontation to intercultural osmosis. While primarily intended as a strategy for evangelisation, forms of inculturation also led to the emergence of new hybrid cultural and religious expressions. These creative processes were rarely unidirectional; instead, they involved reciprocal cultural transactions in which local communities exerted significant agency.
Cross-Cultural Heritage deepens our understanding of the intricate relationships between missions and missionised communities. These are reflected in the material and immaterial legacies of missionary histories in various contexts in South America, Africa, Asia, the Pacific and Europe. Often, they remain deeply rooted in landscapes, memories and practices today.
Contributing authors: Paola Granado (Université Lumière Lyon 2), Leah Abayao (University of the Philippines Baguio), Kwami Edem Afoutou (Université Laval), Karen Jacobs (University of East Anglia), Naziru Yahaya Shu’Aibu (College of Advance and Remedial Studies, Kano), Leon Bouwmeester (KU Leuven), Jennifer Bond (University College London), Rinald D’Souza (KU Leuven), Markus A. Scholz (Philosophisch-Theologische Hochschule Sankt Georgen Frankfurt am Main), Idesbald Goddeeris (KU Leuven).
This publication is GPRC-labeled (Guaranteed Peer-Reviewed Content).
Jonas Van Mulder is a research associate and curator at KADOC Documentation and Research Centre on Religion, Culture and Society of KU Leuven.
Thomas Coomans is a full professor of architectural history and built heritage conservation at KU Leuven and director of the Advanced Master in Conservation of Monuments and Sites (RLICC), at the Faculty of Engineering Science.
Dries Vanysacker is professor of history of Church and Theology at KU Leuven and head of the Study and Documentation Centre Capuchins in the Low Countries.
Missionary Heritage: Legacies of Religious Imperialism, Inculturation, and Appropriation
Jonas Van Mulder, Thomas Coomans, and Dries Vanysacker
ENCOUNTERS AND INTERPLAYS
Bolivian Missionary Musical Repertoire, Heritagization, and Contemporary Roles
Paola Granado
Belgian CICM Missionaries, Territorial Heritage, and the Chico River Dam Resistance in the Philippines
Leah Abayao
Challenges to Catholic Identity in Southern Togo. Ewe Christianity and the Marshall Order
Kwami Edem Afoutou
Co-Mission. The Material Dimension of Missionary Work in the Pacific
Karen Jacobs
PLACE AND MEMORY
Identity and Memory of Christian Missions among the Maguzawa in Nigeria, 1940–2017
Naziru Yahaya Shuaibu
From Mainland to Island. The Architectural Legacy of Belgian Franciscan Missionaries in Early Postwar Taipei
Leon Bouwmeester
Dreams, Nostalgia, and Commercialization. Telling Stories about Missionary Schools for Girls in Modern China
Jennifer Bond
REPRESENTATION AND MEMORIALIZATION
Text and Mission in Transition. The Indigenization of the Ranchi Jesuit Province, 1956–2000
Rinald D’Souza
Ethnographic Objects and Provenance from Missionary Contexts. The Chile Missions of the Bavarian Capuchins and their Museum in Altötting, 1896–1932
Markus A. Scholz
‘Benefactors of Humanity’? Monuments for Missionaries in the Belgian Public Space
Idesbald Goddeeris
