Black and Deaf Western Missionaries and Deaf Education in Ghana and Nigeria: The Story of Berta and Andrew Foster—A Case Study in Global History

• Applicant: Dr. Anja Werner
• Subject Area: Modern and Contemporary History ; African, American and Oceania Studies
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 503183972

In my planned exemplary case study in global history, I examine Western missionaries Andrew Jackson Foster (1925-1987) and Berta Zuther Foster (1939-2018), who since 1957 founded 32 schools and churches for the deaf in 13 African countries. Both were deaf. Up to now, American, Ghanaian, and Nigerian scholars discussed Andrew as a deaf African American missionary. However, although Andrew himself pointed out how important Berta was for his mission, we hardly know anything about her. Telling the story from her perspective thus adds important new insights. Berta was German. She had lost her hearing at age four and subsequently was schooled orally in West Berlin during the 1940s and 1950s, which meant that she was taught to lipread and articulate, but not how to sign. Although apparently gifted, she had to content herself becoming a seamstress while her hearing younger siblings moved on to university. Not until she had met Andrew did she begin to learn sign language and unfold her potential. In the course of her life, she underwent an impressive development from interested observer and mentee to professional partner, wife, mother of five, and, ultimately, since 1987, head of the Christian Mission for the Deaf (CMD), which Andrew had founded in 1956. The main outcome of my proposed project will be a thoroughly researched and contextualized group biography of Andrew and Berta Foster from Berta’s perspective. I will introduce Berta as an active player and incorporate a re-evaluation of Andrew as a Black and deaf educator of the deaf. I will study the Foster’s intertwined lives and activities against the backdrop of decolonization applying intersectional, interdisciplinary, and transcultural concepts. The complex interconnectedness of (de-)colonization and civil rights movements is apparent in the work of the Fosters: As missionaries, they actually contributed to transcultural processes that were rooted in colonial structures. As a deaf interracial couple, however, they knew from experience what it meant to be forced to the subaltern side of power hierarchies. In addition to ethnicity and gender, I thus add the aspect of hearing status to the study of intersectionality, exploring how the Fosters might have benefitted from their interlinked experiences as deaf, black and white, male and female missionaries. I furthermore include linguistic, ethnological, and medical knowledge about hearing loss. I mediate this interdisciplinary diversity with the help of historical methods. Last but not least, the Fosters provide us with an opportunity to explore approaches to a transcultural historiography by following their trajectories across three different continents. Taking this deaf, racially-mixed couple as an example, I will prepare an exemplary case study that illustrates transcultural global history research while adding significantly to our understanding of how the history of deaf people may be constructed as an integral part of historiography.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants