Pilgrimage, consumption and rituals: Spiritual authenticity in a Shia Muslim pilgrimage (original) (raw)
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Tourism Management
A critical dimension of pilgrimage is arguably pilgrims' experience, in particular the authenticity of their experience. The aim of the study is to understand how authenticity is evoked in a religious pilgrimage and the relationship between authenticity, rituals and consumption. The research contributes ethnographic insights from a Muslim pilgrimage called Ziyara-t-Arba'een. In so doing, pilgrimages are conceptualised as a quest for spiritual authenticity, a hybrid form of existential, ideological and objective authenticity. The findings section leads to a discussion of the ways in which spiritual authenticity is realised through rituals and the consumption of texts, material objects and space. The contribution of this paper is threefold: 1) it explores the different dimensions of authenticity in a pilgrimage experience; 2) it examines the role of material culture and ritual consumption in achieving forms of authenticity; and 3) it broadens the understanding of the pilgrimage as a context-bound and culturally specific phenomenon.
This paper attempts to seek connections to the authenticity and spirituality of traveller in one or another mode of experience. The preparatory terminological background is defined by the distinction of the spheres of the sacral and the profane [Eliade 1957]. The central concept is spirituality, which can be perceived not only as an aspect of religiosity, but also, in relation to the philosophical anthropology of Max Scheler [1981], as a substantially personal way of human existence. The essential viewpoint stems in the distinction between the individual ways of travelling, since both tourism and pilgrimage can obtain religious as well as secular connotations. As opposed to the continuum defined by Cohen [1979], this contribution deals with phenomena of authenticity and spirituality.
“Seeking the Sacred through Pilgrimage”: A Theological Perspective
Journal of Orthodox Christian Studies, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2021
This paper aims to offer a theological taxonomy vis-à-vis the practice of pilgrimage. The taxonomy is constructed around three theological imperatives: that of Revelation, of the Incarnation, and the Sacramental. Acknowledging the polymorphic nature of pilgrimages, as religious, social, and ethno-cultural events which invite multi-layered investigation, this paper proposes an interdisciplinary bridging exercise by translating these theological imperatives into language that can be related to the sociological, anthropological, or ethnographic approach to pilgrimage, in order to highlight some interdisciplinary points of correspondence. The paper also touches on issues of secularization, the negotiation of public space by the religious event, and queries the role of the Church—particularly in the Eastern Orthodox context—in translating or inhibiting the translation of said theological imperatives in the wider social milieu.
Revisiting the separation between sacred and profane: Boundary-work in pilgrimage experiences
2015
Rinallo et al. (2013) have recently observed that interpretive consumer researchers have focused their attention on the sacralization of mundane consumption (Belk et al., 1989) outside of religious institutions and experiences, which are still theoretically and empirically underexplored. The long-neglected relationships between religion, market and consumer culture is however receiving increased theoretical attention (e.g., Mittelstaedt, 2002; Izberk-Bilgin, 2012; McAlexander et al., 2014). In this paper, we contribute to such literature with some epistemological reflections on the complex relationships between religions and markets, which we support theoretically and with empirical illustrations from an ongoing study of two Christian pilgrimages in Europe (Santiago de Compostela and Lourdes). Our reflection is based on the concept of boundary-work which brings an alternative perspective to the sacred/profane e opposition.
Approaching the Sacred: Pilgrimage in Historical and Intercultural Perspective
2017
The aim of the volume is a comparative study of non-European pilgrimages under different historical conditions and changing power relations. Historic transformations but also continuities in organization, bodily and spiritual experience, as well as individual and collective motives are discussed. Written by an interdisciplinary group of authors, their various disciplinary perspectives offer insight into the differences in methods, theoretical reflections and the use and meanings of objects in ritual performances. The construction of sacred spaces as landscapes of imagination reflects a wide range of meaning in regard of the growing complexity and social dynamism in times of postmodernity. Keywords: Interdisciplinary approach; non-European pilgrimages; transformation and continuity; theories of pilgrimage studies Ziel des Bandes ist eine vergleichende Analyse außereuropäischer Pilgerreisen unter verschiedenen historischen Bedingungen und Machtverhältnissen. Untersucht werden historische Transformationsprozesse, aber auch Kontinuitäten bezüglich der Organisation, der körperlichen und spirituellen Erfahrungen sowie der individuellen und kollektiven Motive der Pilger. Die interdisziplinäre Zusammensetzung der Autoren vermittelt Einblicke in unterschiedliche Methoden, theoretische Reflektionen sowie den Gebrauch und die Bedeutung von Objekten in rituellen Performances. Die Konstruktion von heiligen Orten als Landschaften der Imagination reflektiert eine große Vielfalt an Bedeutungen in Bezug auf die komplexen und dynamischen Prozesse im Zeitalter der Postmoderne.
Women in Pilgrimage: Senses, Places, Embodiment and Agency
This paper is based on fieldwork that explores the social, cultural, and embodied organization of Shi'a pilgrimage practices in Shiraz, Iran, specifically the ways in which women interact with the shrine. Pilgrimage (ziyarat) 1 in Iran is a daily practice that carries an important role in cultural interactions and gives life to the religious experience. While places of pilgrimage usually contain a gendered division, women tend to hold a role of power in (non-Western) conventional dimensions of the religious practice. This is due to the informal nature of shrines, which, unlike other religious settings, offer a deep-seated intimacy and freedom of movement. In a timeline of six weeks, I investigated the culture of the shrine by focusing on three specific shrines and observed the role of women in relation to expressions of power and agency. An integral part of this research has been the exploration of Shi'a Islam as a sensorial experience, specifically the practice of touch to the physical pilgrimage sites as a means of becoming closer to God. How are women's relations with the shrine embodied? What are the various modalities of agency that are operative in these interactions? I have engaged with ethnographic material, which consists of interviews, informal conversations, personal observations and photographs of women and religious spaces. By participating in pilgrimage, and observing the way aestheticized space is created and divided, I have attempted to display the role and power of women in Iranian society.
2019
In this paper, I explore the field of Islamic pilgrimage studies and follows some of the changes taking place in pilgrimage and religious tourism studies in Islam and among Islamic communities around the globe. My entry point to the field is not with pilgrimage per se but rather as a cultural geographer who explores the sacred and sacred locations and how they are understood, shaped within perpetual ‘process of becoming’. Hence, this paper is informed mostly by cultural geographical theories of places and pilgrimage as conceptualized and theorized in anthology of religion. The paper’s first section theorize the field of Islamic pilgrimage as a subsection of pilgrimage studies and anthropology of Islam. Following is a section that considers the main developments within Islam as a religious tradition regarding pilgrimage. The third section sketches briefly the many faces of contemporary Islamic pilgrimage. In closing the paper sums up the major developments in the field and allow for a plausible agenda for future directions.