ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the contextualization of the document, as it was written during an interesting period in Danish–Norwegian mission history: the period between 1714 and 1727. In 1714, the Missionary Collegium was established by the Danish–Norwegian king, Frederik IV, to contribute to the mission in the colony of Tranquebar in East India. The theoretical framework is the morphogenetic approach, which gives a methodology for contextualizing the document. Margaret Archer developed the morphogenetic approach in the course of explaining the social origins and effects of educational systems. The concept of morphogenesis indicates that society has no preferred form but instead is shaped and reshaped by the interplay between structure and agency. Thomas von Westen was born in Trondheim, Norway, in 1682, and brought up in a pharmacist family – his father Arnoldus von Westen owned and ran the Loveapoteket.
