The ‘spatial turn’ of missionary places Situated at the crossroads of missionary history, imperial history and colonial architecture, this volume examines the architectural staging and spatial implications of the worldwide expansion of Christianity in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. By focusing on specific architectural fragments, analysing the intersection of Christian edifices in colonial and traditional urban settings or unravelling the social understanding of missionary places, each chapter strives to understand the agency of missionary spaces. Bringing together scholars from different disciplines and fields, this book aims to centre those missionary spaces by approaching them not merely as décor around and within which the missionary encounter was acted, but by making them part and parcel of it. Through its approach, Missionary Spaces provides a new paradigm for scrutinising the ‘spatial turn’ for missionary histories and contributes to the increased attention across the humanities to space, place, and location since the late 1990s. Space does not occur as an historical given, but as a social construction to be analysed, while at the same time having explanatory value of its own. This book focuses on Africa and the Chinese Region with contributions on Burundi, China, Congo, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, and Taiwan. Contributors: Leon Bouwmeester, Lawrence Braschi, Bram Cleys, Thomas Coomans, Céline Frémaux, Johan Lagae, Maarten Onneweer, Alexis B. Tengan Situated at the crossroads of missionary history, imperial history and colonial architecture, this volume examines the architectural staging and spatial implications of the worldwide expansion of Christianity in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. By focusing on specific architectural fragments, analysing the intersection of Christian edifices in colonial and traditional urban settings or unravelling the social understanding of missionary places, each chapter strives to understand the agency of missionary spaces. Bringing together scholars from different disciplines and fields, this book aims to centre those missionary spaces by approaching them not merely as décor around and within which the missionary encounter was acted, but by making them part and parcel of it. Through its approach, Missionary Spaces provides a new paradigm for scrutinising the ‘spatial turn’ for missionary histories and contributes to the increased attention across the humanities to space, place, and location since the late 1990s. Space does not occur as an historical given, but as a social construction to be analysed, while at the same time having explanatory value of its own. This book focuses on Africa and the Chinese Region with contributions on Burundi, China, Congo, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, and Taiwan. Contributors: Leon Bouwmeester, Lawrence Braschi, Bram Cleys, Thomas Coomans, Céline Frémaux, Johan Lagae, Maarten Onneweer, Alexis B. Tengan INTRODUCTION Imagining, Building, Contesting Missionary Spaces Thomas Coomans PART ONE – IMAGINED WORLD / ADAPTED STRATEGIES 1 Spatial Trajectories and Missionary and Colonial Movements into Northwest Ghana since 1929: Dagara Reception of Catholic Missionary Activities Alexis B. Tengan 2 Redeeming Ukamba: Word and World, 1893-1905 Maarten Onneweer 3 Islands on the Mainland: Catholic Missions and Spatial Strategies in China, 1840s-1940s Thomas Coomans 4 Co-authoring the City: Missionaries and the Colonial City of Luluaburg (Belgian Congo), 1930-1960 Bram Cleys 5 The Catholic Territorialization of Taiwan: Vatican Global Strategy and Franciscan Local Parishes, 1949-1960s Leon Bouwmeester and Thomas Coomans PART TWO – UNIVERSAL PROJECTS / LOCALIZED ARCHITECTURES 6 Gendered Spaces in Catholic Compounds of Late Qing China Thomas Coomans 7 Gender-Designed Catholic Churches in North China, 1830s-1920s Thomas Coomans 8 The Missionaries in the Cosmopolitan Towns of the Suez Isthmus, Egypt: Their Role in the Formation of Identity in Architecture and Urban Planning, 1860-1937 Céline Frémaux 9 Civilizing Space in West China: Re-examining the Place of the Christian University in Chengdu, 1909-1933 Lawrence Braschi 10 A Highly ‘Mediated Monument’ of Tropical Modernism in Central Africa: Unpacking the Complex Agendas behind the Design and Construction of the Collège du Saint-Esprit in Bujumbura, Burundi Johan Lagae Abbreviations Index of Persons Index of Places Authors Colophon