Social Sciences and Missions 30 (2017) 44–73 Social Sciences and Missions Sciences sociales et missions brill.com/ssm Mission and Cosmopolitan Mothering Saving Armenian Mothers and Orphans, 1902–1947 Maria Småberg* Department of History, Lund University, Sweden [email protected] Abstract This article discusses and analyzes mothering that crosses boundaries of care in spite of differences of nationality, culture and religion. Swedish missionary Alma Johansson was one of a remarkable number of women missionaries who volunteered as relief workers during the Armenian refugee crisis. These women missionaries were often seen as mothers who were ‘saving a whole generation’.The article shows how Johansson acted as an external mother and created transnational bonds of solidarity between Swedish and Armenian mothers. The close relationships became a foundation for Armenian children and women to help themselves. However, in this mothering were also ambivalences. Résumé Cet article présente et analyse les figures maternelles communes à plusieurs domaines de l’aide, au-delà des différences nationales, culturelles et religieuses. La missionnaire suédoise Alma Johansson a été l’une des nombreuses femmes missionnaires qui se sont portées volontaires pour l’aide humanitaire durant la crise des refugiés arméniens. Ces femmes missionnaires étaient souvent vues comme des mères qui ‘sauvaient toute une génération’. Cet article montre comment Johansson a agi comme une mère externe et a créé des liens transnationaux de solidarité entre mères suédoises et arméniennes. Ces relations étroites ont donné naissance à une fondation visant à aider les enfants et les * I would like to thank Dan-Erik Andersson, Lena Halldenius, Karin Hongsaton Zackari, Thomas Småberg, Lina Sturfelt and Andreas Tullberg for useful comments on earlier drafts of this article. I also want to thank the Social Sciences and Missions’ anonymous reviewers for their insightful and constructive comments and suggestions and Margo Gewurtz and Seija Jalagin for editorial support. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2017 | doi: 10.1163/18748945-03001007 Downloaded from Brill.com09/27/2021 02:37:37PM via free access mission and cosmopolitan mothering 45 femmes arméniennes à se prendre en charge par eux-mêmes. Ce rôle de mère n’est toutefois pas dépourvu d’ambivalences. Keywords mothering – humanitarianism – transnationalism – cosmopolitanism – gender – Armenian Genocide Mots-clés maternage – humanitarisme – transnationalisme – cosmopolitisme – genre – génocide arménien Swedish missionary Alma Johansson (1881–1974) was one of a remarkable num- ber of Scandinavian single women missionaries, educated as nurses or teach- ers, who volunteered as relief workers during the Armenian refugee crisis. These women missionaries were often seen as mothers, “mayriks” in Arme- nian, who were “saving a whole generation”.1 Alma Johansson was sent out in 1902 by the organization Kvinnliga Missionsarbetare (Women MissionaryWork- ers), k.m.a., to work among Armenian women and orphans in the aftermath of the massacres in the Ottoman Empire in the 1890’s.2 She then cared for mothers and children in various ways. She worked in different orphanages in Mezreh and Mush in Ottoman Turkey until 1915. As a nurse she also saw the special needs of women and therefore decided to become a midwife. After the war she worked with Armenian refugees in Constantinople and Thessaloniki where she started up schools for children. In her work in the refugee camps she also focused on self-help projects for Armenian women, so that they could 1 Okkenhaug, Inger Marie, “Scandinavian Missionaries, Gender and Armenian refugees during World War i: Crisis and Reshaping of Vocation”, Social Sciences and Missions, Vol. 23(1), 2010, pp. 88–91. 2 During the rule of Sultan Ambdulhamid ii, massacres on the Christian minorities took place in Ottoman Turkey in 1894–1896. American and German Protestant missionaries from e.g. American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (abcfm), Deutscher Hülfsbund für Christliches Liebeswerk im Orient and Deutsche Orient Mission, started to combine missionary and development work. Secular organizations such as the Red Cross also sent out relief workers to the area at the end of the 19th century. Social Sciences and Missions 30 (2017) 44–73 Downloaded from Brill.com09/27/2021 02:37:37PM via free access 46 småberg become bread-winners and take care of their children themselves. Thus, Alma Johansson became an external mother for many of the Armenian orphans and a support to Armenian mothers. In humanitarian settings mothers are exposed to specific challenges as mothers. Child birth, breast feeding, diseases and the risk of rape and other violation when leaving home in order to maintain their families make them especially vulnerable in violent conflicts. Since the mothers sustain whole com- munities, it is also an efficient way to destroy a local society when targeting civilian women. Saving mothers and children in humanitarian crises is there- fore in the spotlight as never before.3 These maternal aspects are however under-studied in the research on the Armenian Genocide and its aftermath, although the majority of the survivors were women and children.4 Hence it is important to highlight mothers and mothering within humanitarian work from this specific historical context. My material allows me to shed light on moth- 3 State of the World’s Mothers report 2014. 4 Some research has highlighted maternal aspects. See e.g. Sanasarian, Eliz, “Gender Distinc- tion in the Genocidal Process: A Preliminary Study of the Armenian Case”, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Vol. 4, 1989, pp. 449–461; Sarafian, Ara, “The Absorption of Armenian Women and Children in Muslim Households as a Structural Component of the Armenian Genocide”, in O. Bartov, P. Mack (eds.), In God’s Name: Genocide and religion in the 20th Cen- tury, New York: Berghahn Books, 1991, pp. 209–221; Derderian, Katharine, “Common Fate, Different Experience: Gender-Specific Aspects of the Armenian Genocide, 1915–1917”, Holo- caust and Genocide Studies, Vol. 19 (1), Spring, 2005, pp. 1–25; Peroomian, Rubina I., “Women and the Armenian Genocide: the Victim, the Living Martyr”, in S. Totten (ed.), Genocide: A critical bibliography review, vol. 7, Plight and fate of the women during and following genocide, New Brunswick, nj: Transaction, 2009: pp. 7–24; Tachjian, Vahé, “Gender, nationalism, exclu- sion: The reintegration process of female survivors of the Armenian Genocide”, Nations and Nationalism, Vol. 15 (1), 2009, pp. 60–80; Bjørnlund, Matthias. “‘A Fate Worse Than Dying’: Sexual Violence during the Armenian Genocide”, in D. Herzog (ed.), Brutality and Desire: War and Sexuality in Europe’s Twentieth Century, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Pal- grave Macmillan, 2009, pp. 16–58; Watenpaugh, Keith David, “The League of Nations’ Rescue of Armenian Genocide Survivors and the Making of Modern Humanitarianism, 1920–1927”, American Historical Review, Vol. 115 (5), December 2010, pp. 1315–1339; Rowe, Victoria, “Arme- nian Women Refugees at the End of Empire: Strategies of Survival”, in P. Panayi, P. Virdee (eds.), Refugees and the End of Empire. Imperial Collapse and Forced Migration in theTwentieth Century, London: Palgrave, 2011, pp. 152–174;Edgren, Monika, “Sexuellt våld i vittnesberättelser om massakern på armenier 1915–1916”, Scandia, Vol. 78 (2), 2012: pp. 87–117; Ekmekcioglu, Lerna, “A climate for abduction, a climate for redemption: the politics of inclusion during and after the Armenian Genocide”, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 55, 2013, pp. 522–553; Okkenhaug, Inger Marie, “Religion, relief and humanitarian work among Arme- nian women refugees in Mandatory Syria, 1927–1934”, Scandinavian Journal of History, Vol. 40 (3), 2015, pp. 432–454. Social Sciences and Missions 30 (2017) 44–73 Downloaded from Brill.com09/27/2021 02:37:37PM via free access mission and cosmopolitan mothering 47 ering aspects of not only the victims of a humanitarian crisis, but also of the humanitarian workers and the humanitarian community. Mothers are often connected to biology, family and nation.5 However, in this article I want to broaden these connotations and explore how mothering is also a social practice performed in both the private and public realms as well as in a global context.6 I am in particular interested in such mothering that crosses boundaries of care in spite of differences of nationality, culture and religion – the entangled histories of mothering. Sara Ruddick’s study Maternal Thinking (1989) will serve as a heuristic tool for my analysis. As will be discussed, Rud- dick’s work focuses on how practices of mothering may give rise to a certain kind of moral thinking. She also shows how mothering can be central to inclu- sive and empowering relationships.7 The witness narratives of Alma Johansson shed light on the values and prac- tices of mothering within humanitarian work. She was perceived as a “mayrik”, but I am also interested in her concern for Armenian mothers in the field and how she created transnational bonds of solidarity between Swedish and Arme- nian mothers.Thus, from the case of Alma Johansson, I will discuss and analyze transnational missionary mothering in a humanitarian crisis and connect it with moral cosmopolitanism – the awareness that all humans belong to a sin- gle community based on relationships of mutual respect and responsibility.8 My aim is to add to the refinement and adaptation of the current theoreti- cal interpretations of the Armenian genocide as well as the involvement of missionaries as humanitarian actors. In what ways did Johansson’s transna- 5 N. Yuval-Davis, Gender and Nation, London: Sage, 1998. 6 Mothering is here understood as a socially-constructed relationship. See S. Ruddick, Mater- nal Thinking: Towards a Politics of Peace, London: Women’s Press, 1990; V. Held, Virginia, The Ethics of Care: Personal, Political, Global. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005; E.F. Kittay, Loves’s Labor: Essays on Women, Equality and Dependency, New York: Routledge, 1999; J. Hill Fletscher, Motherhood as Metaphor. Engendering Interreligious Dialogue, New York: Fordham University Press, 2013; U.