Tempels sought sympathetic identification with Bantu rather than detached observation

Evidence

I must say that my goal, in this study of the Bantu was to feel myself “Bantu” at least once. I wanted to think, feel, live like him, have a Bantu soul. All that with the intention of adapting. … There was doubtless in my attitude something more, or something else, than the simple scientific interest of an anthropologist who asks questions without the object of his science, the living man in front of him, necessarily being the objective of his investigations. My attitude perhaps included an element of sympathy towards this living individual and evoked in him a reaction of confidence towards me. — Frans Dokman, Beyond Bantu Philosophy_…, 518

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

• XREF: Foreshadows the methodological contrast with classical anthropology and anticipatory themes of participatory research.

Related

• Tempels sought to inhabit Bantu interiority rather than merely observe it (similarity 0.89)
• Tempels abandoned doctrinal manuals to seek felt Bantu understanding before re-evangelizing. (similarity 0.86)
• Tempels’s Bantu Philosophy aimed at more effective Christianization of the Bantu. (similarity 0.84)
• Tempels held that Bantu were unconscious of their own philosophy (similarity 0.84)
• Tempels’s colonial missionary encounter radically transformed his own convictions (similarity 0.83)
• Tempels’s ethnographic study of African cultures served his goal of Christianization (similarity 0.83)
• Tempels sought to understand Bantu thought only after missionary conversion failed (similarity 0.82)
• Tempels’ Bantu Philosophy was written as evangelization strategy responding to Luba resistance (similarity 0.82)
• Tempels addressed Bantu Philosophy to colonizers seeking to Christianize Africans (similarity 0.82)
• Tempels’s condescending work still broke from classical anthropology (similarity 0.82)
• Tempels learned Kiluba and ethnology after missionaries failed to convert Congolese (similarity 0.82)
• Tempels’s missionary intent inverted into codifying Bantu philosophy (similarity 0.81)
• Tempels’s Bantu Philosophy challenged colonial paternalism toward African intellectual capabilities. (similarity 0.81)
• Tempels urged missionaries to abandon European methodologies for African dialogue. (similarity 0.81)
• Tempels believed Europeans, not Bantu, must systematize Bantu philosophy (similarity 0.81)

Broader Connections

• Tempels sought to adopt the Bantu soul before re-presenting Christianity in adapted form. #corroborates (0.70) — Frans Dokman, Beyond Bantu Philosophy_…, 685
• Tempels shifted from colonial monologue to dialogical method after observing mission failure. #complicates (0.50) — Frans Dokman, Beyond Bantu Philosophy_…, 681