Routledge Research in Gender and History: An Historiography of Twentieth-Century Women’s Missionary Nursing Through the Lives of Two Sisters Doing the Lord’s Work in Kenya and South India
By Sara Ashencaen Crabtree
This volume draws on a trove of unpublished original material from the pre-1940s to the present to offer a unique historiographic study of twentieth century Methodist missionary work and women’s active expression of faith practised at the critical confluence of historical and global changes.
The study focuses on two English Methodist missionary nursing sisters and siblings, Audrey and Muriel Chalkely, whose words and experiences are captured in detail, foregrounding tumultuous socio-political changes of the end of Empire and post-Independence in twentieth-century Kenya and South India. The work presents a timely revision to prevailing post-colonial critiques in placing the fundamental importance of human relationships centre stage. Offering a detailed (auto)biographical and reflective narrative, this ‘herstory’ pivots on three main thematic strands relating to people, place and passion, where socio-cultural details are vividly explored.
The book will appeal to a wide range of readers, both the interested public and the academic alike, where a lively, entertaining, literary style introduces readers to the politics of women’s lives, and principle and professional service foreground ethno-class-caste oppression, emancipation, conflict, commitments and religious tensions. It reveals the human, vulnerable qualities of these women, illuminating their stories and courageous choices.
Table of Contents
1. Sketching the sacred: An introduction to a contemporary hagiography
2. Methodism: People, passion and piety
3. The foundations of faith: A methodist girlhood
4. War, mercy, hope and charity
5. The ‘call’ to India
6. Medical mission in India and the confluence of worlds
7. The road to Maua
8. The Mutani and the Mau Mau
9. New Jerusalems
10. Conclusion: An unfolding legacy
Biography
Sara Ashencaen Crabtree is Professor of Social and Cultural Diversity, Bournemouth University, UK, and Professor Emeritus, University of Stavanger, Norway. An internationally renowned social scientist, she publishes prolifically, on faith, gender, diversity, welfare and vulnerability.