Professor Øyvind Bjørnson
Bjørnson will use his ongoing work on the city of Haugesund’s history to analyse the social, political and cultural aspects of mission organizations in a local society on the west coast of Norway, where the Lutheran mission movement was particularly strong. Focus of inquiry will be mission as part of a larger cultural movement, as a culture of protest against the metropolitan Norway and as a civilizing project within the local community. By focusing on several central female actors, the link between mission activism, gender and political influence will be analysed. Who were the central mission supporters and how did they view the “needy” in their own society compared to the “needy” in f. ex. Madagascar? One such key actor was Constance Kruse Lothe (1855-1941), who was active in several mission organizations, a prominent member of the liberal political party “Venstre”and worked for women’s political rights. What were the links between the understanding of religion and social development and women’s rights? So far these networks have not been analysed in a Norwegian historical context. This biographically based study will thus provide new insight in the relations between religion, gender, modernization and liberal political culture in the core of the missionary movement’s home base.