Missionaries of the State: The Summer Institute of Linguistics, 1935-1985 (review)

Was the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) an agent for the CIA in the third world? This is the question that animates Todd Hartch's study of the long history of the SIL in Mexico, and while Hartch feels confident in asserting that a direct connection did not exist, other questions about the role of the missionary/translators employed by this organization remain.

As told by Hartch, the story of the SIL in Mexico is quite fascinating. The brainchild of the American missionary Cameron Townsend, it began with a small group of American evangelicals who inserted themselves into a struggle between the revolutionary state and the Catholic Church, and over several decades evolved into one of the most important agents of occidental culture in Mexico's indigenous communities. SIL translators produced New Testaments in dozens of indigenous languages, and provided much of the linguistic basis for indigenous literacy in Mexico. Given their vulnerable position as foreigners working first with an anti-clerical, nationalist, and leftist state, and later with a conservative Catholic friendly regime, they were remarkable for their ability to insinuate themselves into the corridors of power, negotiate local power struggles deftly, and their influential role in the development of Indian policy in Mexico until the late nineteen seventies.

The text successfully balances a close analysis of the workings of the SIL and its sister agency, the Wycliffe Bible Translators, against the larger story of Mexico's changing political climate, along with paying close attention to the transformations that indigenous communities underwent as the state, roads, and markets became increasingly important in previously remote regions. The SIL was one of several agents of change, impacting the lives of indigenous peoples in significant but often unforeseen ways. Hartch eschews any notion that these changes were either wholly positive or negative, instead focusing on the ways that members of indigenous communities embraced, rejected, transformed, and co-opted the efforts of the linguistic missionaries in their midst.

Hartch is somewhat sympathetic to the individuals who worked for the SIL, in part because of their skill at working the system, in part because of their ideals, and in part because of the arduous labor of translation they undertook in rural communities. This sympathy however, may color his larger analysis of the role of evangelism in the agency. While critics paint the SIL as cynically using bible translation and efforts to produce knowledge of Indian languages as ploys to act as agents of evangelical churches and U.S. imperialism, Hartch insists that the story is much more complex. He notes that USAID did support the SIL, but insists that because direct links between the CIA and SIL cannot be proven, they likely did not exist. Leaving aside the fact that if there were direct links they would not likely be found in the public record, Hartch may go too lightly on the agents of the SIL. When he writes of their sympathy for anti-communist regimes, he suggests that it was the religious freedom afforded by such regimes that the SIL favored. Given the backgrounds of many SIL employees, it seems that there may be more to the story.

Hartch notes that translators were careful about acting in overtly missionary or political ways, and his rendering of the experience of the SIL in Otomí communities is quite convincing (especially his point that the translations could have many unforeseen effects, and not all of them propitious for the evangelicals) but his analysis might go further in exploring the complex and evolving balance between translation and evangelism that lay at the heart of the SIL's work in Mexico. Given the changes in SIL personnel over time, and the influence its resources conferred, this issue deserves further examination. Ultimately Harsch provides an interesting and compelling analysis of a curious institution. Part agent of U.S. imperialism, part agent of the Mexican state's acculturation policies, and in part an agent...