Items in this collection include materials that Sister Janice McLaughlin gathered for her dissertation, entitled “The Catholic Church and Zimbabwe’s War of Liberation: 1972-1980,” and her book based on her dissertation entitled On the Frontline: Catholic Missions in Zimbabwe’s Liberation War. This research began circa 1977, with a focused period of dissertation research occurring between October 1988-July 1991. Materials in this collection include: research files, interview transcripts, and photographs taken at a camp for displaced people in Mozambique that were taken circa 1998-1999. This collection is divided into three series and retained McLaughlin’s organization where possible.

Series 1 consists of research files. This includes correspondence, meeting documents, news clippings, research papers, historical accounts of events, statements, reports recounting historical events, Rhodesian government propaganda pamphlets, annotated secondary sources, handwritten notes, and ephemera. Additionally, please be advised that items in Box 2 Folder 7 contains graphic descriptions of acts of violence and graphic photographs of the aftermath of acts of violence. Series 2 consists of interviews conducted by McLaughlin. According to McLaughlin, interviewees were either Catholic mission personnel or guerillas who operated one of the four Catholic missions in Rhodesia during the time period 1972-1980. Additionally, there is a note from McLaughlin on the chapter about her that appears in Convictions: Political prisoners, their stories. Also included is a DVD of an interview with McLaughlin about her experience in Rhodesia in 1977. This interview was conducted by Nancy Tong, who made the documentary Trailblazers in Habits about the Maryknoll Sisters in 2012.

Series 3 consists of photographs that according to a note included with the collection were taken by McLaughlin in approximately 1998-1999 at Casa Bonona, a camp for displaced individuals in Gorongosa Park in Central Mozambique. At the time of these pictures representatives from Zimbabwe Mozambique Friendship Association (ZIMOFA) were bringing supplies.