Économies politiques mandataires et économies morales missionnaires de l’alcool dans les mandats de la Société des Nations (1919-1939)

• Main Author: Philippe Bourmaud
• Format: Article
• Language: fra
• Published: Laboratoire de Recherche Historique Rhône-Alpes (LARHRA UMR 5190) 2014-07-01
• Series: Chrétiens et Sociétés
• Subjects: League of Nations; Mandates; International agendas; Church Missionary Society; Antialcoholism; Social Problems
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/chretienssocietes/3547

Missionaries have played a major rôle in promoting antialcoholism in the colonial world since the nineteenth century. It might therefore be assumed that their agenda dovetailed with the antialcoholic views that were part and parcel of the League of Nations Mandates in Africa and the Pacific during the Interwar period. However, this article contends that actors within international circles, including representatives of missionary societies, and missionaries on the ground had divergent views on the issue. The moral economies within which they worked differed because the meaning of « alcohol » as the cause of social problems varied. Based on an analysis of the letters of missionaries for the Church Missionary Society in the British Mandate for Tanganyika, the study contends moreover that the general structure of the Mandates system, with its insistance on enforcing Indirect rule, contributed to the social context that made alcohol a problem for missionaries in the field.