Missions and Conversions [electronic resource] : Creating the Montagnard-Dega Refugee Community /
Pearson, T.author.
This study offers a fresh reading of religious conversion by analyzing a variety of "missionaries" that sought to influence the Montagnard-Dega refugee. Thomas Pearson uses ethnographic and archival research to tell the story of cross-cultural contact in the highlands during the Vietnam War, Christian conversion, refugee exile, and the formation of the Dega refugee community in the United States. His insightful study considers not just evangelicals and Catholics, but humanitarian workers in the highlands, refugee resettlement volunteers in the United States, and the American Special Forces soldiers. This book makes the case that the Dega have appropriated the anthropological and religious discourses of this disparate group of missionaries to recreate themselves through a multivalent "conversion.".
Description based upon print version of record.
Cover; Contents; Acknowledgments; List of Abbreviations; CIA Map of Ethnic Groups of South Vietnam; 1 Introduction and Afterword; 2 Representing the Montagnards; 3 The Conversion of the Dega; 4 Conversion to Refugees; 5 Sickness, Sin, and Animal Sacrifice; 6 Hearts and Minds; 7 The Conversion of the Special Forces; Notes; Bibliography; Index
Includes bibliographical references and index.
This study offers a fresh reading of religious conversion by analyzing a variety of "missionaries" that sought to influence the Montagnard-Dega refugee. Thomas Pearson uses ethnographic and archival research to tell the story of cross-cultural contact in the highlands during the Vietnam War, Christian conversion, refugee exile, and the formation of the Dega refugee community in the United States. His insightful study considers not just evangelicals and Catholics, but humanitarian workers in the highlands, refugee resettlement volunteers in the United States, and the American Special Forces soldiers. This book makes the case that the Dega have appropriated the anthropological and religious discourses of this disparate group of missionaries to recreate themselves through a multivalent "conversion.".
Anthropology.
Ethnology.
Culture.
Religion and sociology.
Astronomy.
Astrophysics.
Christianity.
Anthropology.
Cultural Anthropology.
Sociology of Culture.
Sociology of Religion.
Astronomy, Astrophysics and Cosmology.
Christianity.