Secular savages, religious natives: inventions of religion in colonial southern Africa

Abstract

In this chapter the author goes back through the historical relations between imperial center and colonized periphery in order to replace everyone involved in the production of these categories back in the same time zone. The focus on the category "religion" will be situated primarily in the context of colonial dreams and colonial adventures in southern Africa. Christian Missionaries and adventure novelists and a host of other, were all involved in the process of producing knowledge about religion for a secular science of religion.