ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the aspect of the narrative by giving attention to the specific features that enabled Missionary Travels to be as effective as a public document. It draws on the published text to explore how David Livingstone develops his “narrative of benign imperial influence” while imposing a series of imaginary overlapping boundaries on the heart of Southern Africa. The chapter argues that Livingstone casts the region – the subject of myth and uninformed speculation – into a “very inviting field” for the capitalist and missionary alike. It provides a bridge between Eurocentric criticism on Victorian expeditionary literature and the intercultural methodologies that this monograph will advance in subsequent chapters – methodologies that foreground the role of non-western forces and agencies in predetermining or otherwise shaping expeditionary discourse production. In terms of indigenous and other non-western populations, many in the British public even questioned the need for and efficacy of overseas missionary work.
