| dc.description.abstract | This study examines the discourse of the Norwegian Pentecostal mission regarding Indigenous peoples in Paraguay through a period ranging from 1952 to 2015. It looks at how Indigenous groups were represented through the missionaries’ writings in the Pentecostal journal Korsets Seier while placing it into its historical context. I am looking at their writings through a post-colonial lens, applying Marianne Gullestad’s theoretical framework of “mission propaganda”, which is directed at capturing tensions in text produced by missionaries within a cross-cultural context. The missionaries were, on the one hand, disseminating values and ideals in line with colonial ideologies, which are characterized by a dualistic way of dividing the world and its people, enforcing inequality and distance. On the other hand, the missionaries were preoccupied with the fact that, in the eyes of God, everyone was of equal value, and they emphasized equality and sameness as core values in their work as missionaries. Examining the complexity of the mission discourse from a historical perspective allows for noting changes and continuities. The mission dissemination of colonial binaries and division persists to some extent throughout the period but lessens as we progress towards our own time. Still, these divisions and binaries that characterized colonial discourse have been kept alive in both old and new forms through the development and human rights discourse. The religious dichotomy that represents the Christians and the heathens, which to some extent persists, has been supplemented with binaries of the developed and non-developed, those who need their human rights protected, and those who provide human rights, which leads to the representation of people in a certain way. However, the writing in the Pentecostal journal contains little that connects its work to human rights, although, as the development shows, there is tangible movement in that direction – whilst never totally disconnected from their evangelizing mission. | |
