| Chapter 1: | Introduction |
This is also true of the studies on the German-speaking Basel Evangelical Mission (BM) (Evangelische Missionsgesellschaft Basel) on the Gold Coast (GC) in the nineteenth century.14 While there have been some sparse studies that acknowledge the ideologically influenced activities of the BM, there has not been any comprehensive and intensive investigation of its missionary practices, a matter that can be of much interest to the field of cultural African and German studies. Historians and sociologists regularly give attention to issues such as economic development and “education”15 on the Gold Coast.16 Other scholars explore the impact of the camera as “part of the European presence anywhere in Africa,” and the photographs as the missionaries’ “perception of the indigenous environment.”17 Other studies consider the provincial background of the missionaries, their organization and religious zeal.18 For example, in Survivors on the Gold Coast (2000) Schweizer gives an exemplary interpretation of the missionaries’ “difficulties” and “sacrifices” on the GC. He writes
He concludes that the disregard for comfort represents the sympathy and basic value that permeates the missionary’s work, without exposing dissonances that are more far-reaching. Seemingly, the belief that the history of the Basel Mission has been widely treated creates the impression that additional studies about missionary activities would be superfluous. In an article in which he discusses the ongoing intercultural blindness in studies on missions, Paul Jenkins states: