Race, resistance, and the boy scout movement in British Colonial Africa - Timothy Parsons

Conceived by General Sir Robert Baden-Powell as a way to reduce class
tensions in Edwardian Britain, scouting evolved into an international
youth movement. It offered a vision of romantic outdoor life as a cure
for disruption caused by industrialization and urbanization. Scouting's
global spread was due to its success in attaching itself to institutions
of authority. As a result, scouting has become embroiled in
controversies in the civil rights struggle in the American South, in
nationalist resistance movements in India, and in the contemporary
American debate over gay rights.




In Race, Resistance, and the Boy Scout Movement in British Colonial Africa,
Timothy Parsons uses scouting as an analytical tool to explore the
tensions in colonial society. Introduced by British officials to
strengthen their rule, the movement targeted the students, juvenile
delinquents, and urban migrants who threatened the social stability of
the regime. Yet Africans themselves used scouting to claim the rights of
full imperial citizenship. They invoked the Fourth Scout Law, which
declared that a scout was a brother to every other scout, to challenge
racial discrimination.




Parsons shows that African scouting was
both an instrument of colonial authority and a subversive challenge to
the legitimacy of the British Empire. His study of African scouting
demonstrates the implications and far-reaching consequences of colonial
authority in all its guises.