Objects of Expert Knowledge: On Time and the Materialities of Conversion to Christianity in the Southern New Hebrides

Authors

  • Jean Mitchell University of Prince Edward Island

Keywords:

time, Vanuatu, expertise, conversion, Christianity, materiality

Abstract

In 1848 Presbyterian missionaries John and Charlotte
Geddie travelled 20,000 miles to Aneityum, an island in the
New Hebrides archipelago (now Vanuatu), in the southwest
Pacific, where they established the first "successful" Christian
mission in island Melanesia. Through evangelical desire, expert
knowledge and ambitious projects, the Geddies along with
converts, Samoan "teachers" and Scottish missionaries, trans
formed everyday and ritual practices within a surprisingly
short period. I draw attention to the materiality of conversion
to argue that "becoming" Christian was connected to knowing
and "doing things" evident in how objects made and remade
the temporalities of the sacred and mundane. Such fraught
material enactments made visible the divergent and overlapping
temporal commitments to conversion at work in Aneityum.

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Published

2013-11-30

How to Cite

Mitchell, J. (2013). Objects of Expert Knowledge: On Time and the Materialities of Conversion to Christianity in the Southern New Hebrides. Anthropologica, 55(2), 291–302. Retrieved from https://cas-sca.journals.uvic.ca/index.php/anthropologica/article/view/689

Issue

Vol. 55 No. 2 (2013): Time and the Expert: Temporalities and the Social Life of Expertise

Section

Thematic Section:

License

Copyright (c) 2013 Jean Mitchell

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