Elephants in the sacred grove: a transcultural history of Thomas Jones and the Calvinistic Methodist mission to the Khasi Hills.

该项目将通过分析印度卡西-斋蒂亚山区的基督教福音派遭遇，特别是威尔士加尔文卫理公会传教士托马斯·琼斯(1810--1849年)的工作，确立宗教在塑造文化、政治和种族特性方面的核心作用。它将挑战当前关于传教与殖民秩序之间关系过于简单化的观点，探索传教士的精神、现代化和帝国主义意识形态，以及对传教项目的本土谈判和调整。这将为理解基督教化和文化适应的历史轨迹提供一个重要的新基础，并为当代关于和解和非殖民化的辩论提供信息。

This project will assert the central role of religion in shaping cultural, political and ethnic identity, through an analysis of the Christian evangelical encounter in the Khasi-Jaintia Hills, India, and in particular the work of the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist missionary Thomas Jones (1810-1849). It will challenge current views of the simplistic relationship between missions and colonial order, exploring missionaries' spiritual, modernising and imperialist ideologies, as well as indigenous negotiations and adaptations of the missionary project. This will provide a significant new base for understanding the historical trajectory of Christianisation and acculturation, and inform contemporary debates about reconciliation and decolonisation.