Charge:      ArchSoc and UPAS members:  free                 Non-members:  R30

Special lecture in Pretoria
The lecture is being presented in partnership with the student body, UPAS - the University of Pretoria Archaeological Society. 
Sherry will be served from 18:30 to give people a chance to meet.

Nineteenth non-conformist missionaries to the Tswana of southern Africa imposed very clear ideas around appropriate living and behaviour. According to their creed, the path to Christian morality and spirituality lay in personal modesty, humble, ordered living, and hard work. Accordingly, they sought to transform the everyday material experiences of the Tswana, including re-making landscapes, and re-ordering domestic spaces. This paper will discuss how missionary ideals were materially translated in a short-lived mission - the Lake Ngami mission of the London Missionary Society - in northwest Botswana. Utilising archaeological and archival sources this paper will examine the interplay between the missionaries and Tswana, and the physical reality of the southern African landscape and the utopian ideals the LMS, ultimately exploring why the mission collapsed after a mere three years.

Ceri Ashley is a Senior Lecturer in Archaeology at the University of Pretoria, and previously held post-doctoral positions at UCL and UCLA. Her current research focuses on nineteenth century Botswana, and the emergence of political complexity in the Greater Mapungubwe Landscape of southern Africa. She has previously carried out research in Uganda, Kenya and Ghana.