Counting as a Qualitative Method by Wayne Fife

Author:Wayne Fife
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030348038
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

This is but one of many examples that show up in the archives of Chalmers pushing things to the edge, and even beyond it in terms of the safety of both himself and others (who never seem to be given a choice in the matter). If part of the ‘hidden curriculum’ of missionary rhetoric involves casting English missionaries as heroes, then Chalmers might well be seen as a victim of his own hubris. Gucheng, on the other hand, might best be viewed as a victim of the European desire to make sure that Pacific Islanders were viewed only as helpers and not heroes, teachers and not missionaries. Even the use of a few key numbers alongside the archival material noted above can call the truth of the European missionary rhetoric into question. Between the years 1871 and 1881, for example, the total number of English missionaries the LMS put into the field dropped from 160 to 139, while ‘native pastors’ working for the society in the same fields went from 106 to 371. Simultaneously, the number of ‘native preachers’ (a term referring to non-ordained evangelists who came from the local missions themselves) went from 1644 to 4529 (Fife 2002: 12). The ‘Polynesian teachers’ of Papua New Guinea were considered to be ‘native pastors’ and therefore among the ‘elite’ of the non-European evangelists. Yet, Polynesian teachers and other native pastors received just 10% of the salary that was given to the English missionaries, while the native preachers did not even receive a regular wage and were simply given goods on an irregular basis (Fife 2002: ibid.). These numerical truths help bring home the more visceral imagery conjured up by the words of the missionaries themselves and puts them into a wider context. With such a strong de facto dependence upon Polynesian teaches, native pastors, and other similar Indigenous forms of evangelical labor, the local and international leaders of the LMS had good reasons to try and portray English missionaries such as Chalmers and MacFarlane as the indispensable heroes of the total endeavor, and downplay the tremendous contributions made by Gucheng and so many nameless others.

Counting can clearly add value to the ethnographic interpretation of historical material. But the principle of counting can also be seen in a broader fashion. I would include comparing the six-page eulogy for Gucheng with the six-page eulogy of Chalmers as a form of ‘counting’ as well. Despite the massively nonequivalent amount that was written at the time lionizing Chalmers, taking just the six pages that most immediately followed his death and comparing it to the only six pages that followed the death of Gucheng adds an interesting dimension to the issue. Comparing a similar number of words, sentences, and pages (treating it as a kind of one-to-one ratio) brings the disparity home in a qualitative sense, just as comparing the huge difference in the quantity of words, sentences, and pages written about the two different evangelists could have been used to bring it home through the

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