The creation of Lubaland: missionary science and Christian literacy in the making of the Luba Katanga in Belgian Congo

This article examines the role of missionary social scientific research and Protestant Christian literacy in the making of the Luba Katanga ethnicity in colonial Belgian Congo. While pre-colonial Luba identity was plural and fluid, those located in the polity’s heartlands shared a political aesthetic of divine kingship embodied in a rich material culture, which was emulated by neighbouring communities as marker of sophistication and civilisation. Under Belgian colonialism the scale and variety of Luba ethnic identity was limited by indirect rule, labour migration and the creation ethnic taxono... Mehr ...