Going Native or Remaining Foreign?

Over recent decades, research has shown an increasing interest in early modern Catholic missions in Asia as test-beds of cultural contact. This shift from a Eurocentric, expansionist view of missions to one that highlights non-European agents and the cultural particularities of non-European Christianities has also resulted in a specialization of scholarly discussions. A conference on Catholic missionaries in early modern Asia recently held in Rome brought together leading experts on different areas to encourage transregional dialogue on the entrenchment of missionaries in local societies. The author is one of the co-organizers of this conference. In this paper, she situates the conference within the field, recapitulates its principal results and suggests areas ripe for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]