The Scots Afrikaners

Identity Politics and Intertwined Religious Cultures in Southern and Central Africa
Author(s): Retief Muller
Format: Hardback
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press, United Kingdom
Imprint: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN-13: 9781474462952, 978-1474462952

Synopsis

Revealing the impact of diasporic Scots on church and society in South Africa and beyondUtilising a large trove of primary source documents, this book presents a trans-generational narrative of the influence and role played by diasporic Scots and some of their descendants in the religious and political lives of Dutch/Afrikaner people in British colonial southern Africa. It demonstrates how this Scottish religious culture helped to develop a complicated counter-narrative to what would become the mainstream discourse of Afrikaner Christian nationalism in the early 20th century. Retief Muller provides new perspectives on the ways in which the historical changeover from British Imperial rule to apartheid South Africa was both contradicted and facilitated by the influence and legacies of Scottish religious emissaries, and considers the backlash to the Scots-Afrikaner tradition from the side of Afrikaner Christian nationalist opponents.