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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

Anja Werner: I examine deaf missionaries Andrew and Berta Foster, who starting in 1957 founded more than 30 schools and churches for the deaf in thirteen African countries.

Duration
07/2022 - 06/2025

Funding
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) :
356 650 Euro

Project management

PD Dr. Anja Werner

Project Leader of the DFG Research Project: 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 (Centre for Transcultural Studies / Perthes Collection)

Andrew Foster was an African American from the segregated South of the United States. Berta Zuther was born under national socialism and grew up in West Berlin during the early Cold War. They met at the 3rd World Congress of the World Federation of the Deaf in Wiesbaden in 1959 and got married in Nigeria in 1961. Tracing the Foster's story allows me to explore intertwined aspects of deaf education in regional and local contexts on three different continents. It does not simply mean to write a biography of two deaf missionaries but to create an exemplary case study in global history that comprises transcultural, interdisciplinary, and intersectional elements and is set against the backdrop of decolonization, civil rights movements, and the Cold War.