Så fullt av omedveten längtan : En undersökning av två missionskvinnors syn på Kina och människorna de mötte där

Sammanfattning

This essay investigates the perspectives laid out in the books and personal letters of two Swedish missionary women, Ingeborg Wikander and Ruth Nathorst, concerning their work and experiences in inland China between 1916 and 1924. It uses intersectional theory, as well as Carol Chin’s concept of beneficent imperialism to examine the attitudes that Wikander and Nathorst present toward China and the Chinese people. More notably, their attitudes toward Chinese women. One of the main points made by the essay is how the western missionary women apparently were able to look past ethnicity and “race” the more “western” the Chinese women became. Meaning that if a Chinese woman was educated in a missionary school, or was baptised, she would become “less Chinese” in the eyes of her western sisters. Those women who did not conform to the missionary’s ideals were either scorned, if they belonged to a higher class, or pitied, if a lower one. The missionaries also express experiencing a “longing” within the Chinese people, which could only be satisfied with conversion to the Christian faith. In short, the Chinese people needed the missionaries both to understand that converting to Christianity would fill a void within them and to be taught “true civilisation”. In conclusion it would seem, much like how Carol Chin describes her beneficent imperialists, that the Swedish missionary women consider their presence in Changsha as benevolent and helpful; they teach, they perform charity work and they try to convert because, in their mind, they are giving as much as they are taking. In the act of bestowing the true religion upon China, they also receive personal salvation.