Imperial emotions: Affective communites of mission in British protestant women's missionary publications c1880-1920

Abstract

This article discusses how imperial emotions as translated by imagery and vocabulary were played out in affective communities of mission in British India. Emotion is used as another form on which racialised power circulated to form an imperial social formation which delineates the differences between Indian and British subjects. Nineteenth century missionary publications are geared towards an audience located at home in Great Britain and not those in India. The involvement of active and complex agencies in the imposition of Christianity on a socially weak elements of Hinduism is discussed. The shared emotional community that brings together the Indian Christian and British missionary women is mentioned. Nevertheless, the community is still fractured along lines of race and class.