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GEOGRAPHERS AND PILGRIMAGES: CHANGING
CONCEPTS IN PILGRIMAGE TOURISM
RESEARCH
NOGA COLLINS-KREINER
Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, University of Haifa, Haifa 31905, Israel. E-mail:
[email protected]
Received: 15 January 2009; revised 29 May 2009
ABSTRACT
Pilgrimage is one of the basic and oldest population mobilities in the human world, and it has wide
implications: political, social, cultural and economic. In this paper, geographical research on
pilgrimage is reviewed, with attention to relevant findings from neighbouring disciplines. The aim
of this research is to examine key issues, arguments and conceptualisations regarding the research
of pilgrimage. This is in order to indicate the shifts that the study of pilgrimage has undergone. As
part of this goal the research will also attempt to point out the dedifferentiation between the
various types of researchers dealing with pilgrimage. It has become clear that the study of
pilgrimage shifted towards blurring between tourism and pilgrimage, namely, secular pilgrimage
and religious pilgrimage. Dedifferentiation has penetrated this study in terms of its features and
its multidisciplinary treatment by researchers.
Key words: Pilgrimage, mobilities, dedifferentiation, tourism, the visitor experience
INTRODUCTION: GEOGRAPHERS AND
PILGRIMAGES
Pilgrimage is one of the best-known phenomena in religion and culture and it features in all
the major religions of the world: Buddhism,
Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Christianity. Pilgrimage could be defined as ‘A journey resulting from religious causes, externally to a holy
site, and internally for spiritual purposes and
internal understanding’ (Barber 1993, p. 1).
Whether traditional and religious or modern
and secular, pilgrimage is experiencing resurgence all over the world, and longstanding
shrines still act as magnets to those in search of
spiritual goals (Digance 2003).
Pilgrimage is one of the forms of ‘circulation’
which, in turn, is one of the forms of population mobility. ‘Mobilities’ are a well-known
interdisciplinary field of study. This concept
encompasses large-scale movements of people,
objects, capital and information across the
world, as well as more local processes of daily
transportation, movement through public
space, and travel for material things in everyday
life. But as the phenomenon of migration
(which means a constant change in the place of
residence) has gained much attention in geographical research, the different forms of ‘circulation’, especially ‘religious circulation’, are
being less researched (Eickelman & Piscatoi
1990). Yet they have no less an effect – indeed,
they may have an even greater one – on the
environment because of the large numbers of
their participants, their cyclicity and the large
communities with which they deal. Thus, their
influence is enhanced (Nolan & Nolan 1989).
Pilgrimage also creates other population
mobilities such as trade, culture exchange,
political integration, and the less desirable
Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie – 2009, Vol. ••, No. ••, pp. ••–••.
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spread of illness and epidemics. It inevitably
necessitates spatial movement; hence it stimulates geographers’ concern with distance and
its effect on behaviour. In this case distance
decay, where interaction between close places
tends to be much greater than that between
widely separated places and which applies to
most human movement, does not apply. Travel
to pilgrimage sites may be expressed by contrasting spatial relationships (Osterrieth 1997;
Stoddard & Morinis 1997) meaning that the
attractiveness of a site is not due to its proximity
to its audience; it could even be because of its
remoteness and the lengthy journey that travellers have to make to get to their magnetic goal.
Pilgrimage is an important subject in the geographical world also because of its size and
spatial influence. Between three and five
million Muslims are estimated to make the Hajj
(the Muslim annual pilgrimage to Mecca on a
specific date), five million pilgrims per year go
to Lourdes in France, and 28 million Hindu
pilgrims go to the River Ganges in India (Singh
2006).
Pilgrimages have powerful political, economic, social and cultural implications, and
even affect global trade and health. As part of
a religion, pilgrimage has exerted geopolitical
influence for most of human history. The
boundaries separating one civilisation from
another were drawn in part along religious
lines. Conflict has often been motivated – or
at least justified – by the desire to spread the
true faith, to reclaim sacred sites or to make a
pilgrimage. Religious groups have also been
important in preserving culture, in promoting
peace and brotherhood. This very substantial
role in defining the heritage of a people is
outside the domain of middle-range theory in
the social sciences (Voas 2007). This phenomenon has stimulated much interest and much
writing about it throughout history, parallel to
the practice itself. The ‘old’ paradigm was
predicated on the assumption that religious
elements were at the core of pilgrimage but,
in recent years, there has been a growth in the
number of researchers dealing with various
aspects of pilgrimage and in their diverse
backgrounds.
Nowadays we can find researchers from many
disciplines studying this field: historians, theologians, sociologists, psychologists, anthropol© 2009 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG
NOGA COLLINS-KREINER
ogists, economists, geographers and many
more (Vukonič, 1996). More significant are the
new angles and perspectives that these
researchers are dealing with as well as the old
and well-known aspects of pilgrimage. The
number of books and publications on the combination of a spiritual search with a physical
journey is one indication of the popularity and
importance of pilgrimage. Clearly, it can be
viewed as an inter-disciplinary field. (Digance
2003; Timothy & Olsen, 2006).
Geographers are also beginning to recognise
more fully the powerful and contingent role of
religion and spirituality on a range of geographical scales, from the corporeal to the institutional and the geopolitical (Holloway &
Valins 2002). In the introduction to a special
section on the geography of religion in a 2006
issue of Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Proctor stated that ‘Though religion
appears to play a prominent role in the contemporary political and cultural landscape . . . relatively few geographers are contributing toward
a better appreciation of this phenomenon’
(Proctor 2006, p. 165). Kong (2001) and Park
(1994) expressed a similar criticism. Proctor
(2006) also suggests that it is time that geographers offer a special voice on the challenges
and opportunities that the realm of religion
puts in front of them, given diverse religious
expressions across space, place and landscape.
The present paper aims to analyse the concepts, theories and paradigms that have been
added or changed in the ongoing research of
pilgrimage during the years and to detect the
differences between the disciplines taking part
in the research of pilgrimage, especially those
between geography and other disciplines.
THE RESEARCH OF PILGRIMAGE
The role of geographers in pilgrimage research
– Geographers were apparently slow to fully
acknowledge the place of religion as a whole
alongside axes of identity such as race, class,
nationality and gender in their research (Kong
2001). Sopher (1967) was among the first geographers to formulate the state of research in the
late 1960s. The 1960s are therefore the first
decade in which geographers started to find
a real interest in religious and pilgrimage
GEOGRAPHERS AND PILGRIMAGES
research. But the main theories and concepts
included in the research were added by sociologists and anthropologists.
The famous historian of religion, Eliade was
among the first one to deal with the pilgrimage
phenomena. Eliade’s (1969) concept of the
‘centre of the world’ through which passes the
axis mundi provides a plausible context for a
theory of pilgrimage. Despite his focus on the
history of religions, Eliade never relinquished
his philosophical agenda and from this perspective a pilgrimage is a religiously motivated
journey to the very centre of the world, or to
one of its homologous representations. For the
individual pilgrim that centre may also be
remote, in the sense that he or she lives far away
from it. But this remoteness, by Eliade’s interpretation, is only locational-geographical. In
even more abstract terms, pilgrimage occurs in
places where the profane has been transformed
into the sacred over time, and is set apart with
boundaries that delimit where profane time
and space make way for the sacred realm, and
enable pilgrims to access the centre of the
world, the axis mundi (Eliade 1969).
The anthropologist Turner (1969) introduced several fundamental social ideas into the
study of pilgrimage, directing the study of these
phenomena along entirely new paths. The
author’s basic idea is that pilgrimage might be
analysed in homologous terms, proposed in
their concept of the ‘ritual process’. Turner
argued that pilgrimages typically involve a stage
of liminality, resembling that in which novices
find themselves in the transitory stage between
two established social statuses. Another of
Turners’ fundamental ideas is that pilgrimage
centres are typically located ‘out there’. This
peripherality is geographic, but more than that
it is symbolic and cultural; the sites are marginal
to population centres, and indeed to the sociopolitical centres of society. These peripheral
centres are often located beyond a stretch of
wilderness or some other uninhabited territory,
in the ‘chaos’ surrounding the ordered ‘cosmicised’ social world. Nevertheless, being a focus
the pilgrimage centre is a paradoxical conceptualisation – a ‘centre out there’ (Turner,
1973, pp. 211–214; Turner & Turner 1978,
p. 241).
‘Communitas’, as defined by Turner and
Turner (1978), refers to specific group dynam-
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ics which take place in an assembly of pilgrims.
A new social situation is created in that all pilgrims are temporarily equal, having united for
the purpose of a sacred journey. Pilgrimage is
a liminal phenomenon for the pilgrim, who
leaves home to journey to a far-off ‘centre out
there’ (Turner 1973; Turner & Turner 1978).
The detachment from everyday life enables the
pilgrim to intensify his or her understanding of
the spiritual meanings of his or her faith. But it
also places him or her in a milieu where he or
she is often more open to new experiences,
ready and willing to meet new people, hear new
things, and reconsider some of his or her
unquestioned assumptions. At the same time,
the travel framework that most choose – the
guided tour – is an ‘environmental bubble’.
Cohen (1992) in his research on tourist and
pilgrim activities at sites in Thailand sets out a
typology of pilgrimage centres that can be construed in terms of the relative emphasis on each
of Eliade’s and Turner’s tendencies. Specifically, he proposes distinguishing two polar
types of pilgrimage centres: the formal and the
popular. Formal centres are those in which the
serious and sublime religious activities are primarily emphasised; the rituals at such centres
are highly formalised and decorous, and conducted in accordance with orthodox precepts.
Though folklorist elements are not absent, they
play a secondary role, and sometimes are even
suppressed by the authorities. The pilgrims’
principal motive for journeying to such centres
is to perform a fundamental religious obligation, to gain religious merit, to make a vow, or
to improve their chances of salvation. The principal pilgrimage centres of a religion, often
constituting the apex of a pilgrimage system,
come closest to this type of centre; the Ka’aba in
Mecca, the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, and St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome are
important contemporary examples of this type,
where formal sacred space is usually associated
with temples, cathedrals, and palaces.
To understand the complexities of pilgrimage, the literature has focused a great deal of
attention on ‘visitor experience’ and the psychosocial dynamics that drive pilgrimage (e.g.
MacCannell 1973; Turner & Turner 1978;
Cohen, 1979, 1992, 1998). In 1973, MacCannell, a sociologist, was the first to claim that
tourism is a quest for the ‘authentic’ and that it
© 2009 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG
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presents the pilgrimage of modern man. MacCannell (1973) went further, asserting that
contemporary tourism embodies many of the
same characteristics as pilgrimage. He claimed
that the tourist is perceived as a pilgrim in the
current modern secular world.
Cohen (1979, p. 180) maintained that the
tourist cannot be described as a ‘general type’
and proposed five main modes of the tourist
experience which are based on the place and
significance of the given experience in the tourists’ total world-view: their attitude to a perceived ‘centre’ and the location of that centre
in relation to the society in which the tourist
lives. The five modes represent a spectrum,
ranging from the tourist’s experience as a traveller in pursuit of mere pleasure to that of the
modern pilgrim in a quest for meaning at
someone else’s centre. Cohen claims that tourists travelling in the ‘existential mode’ are
similar to pilgrims. Both are fully committed
to an elective spiritual centre, external to the
mainstream of their native society and culture
because they feel that the only meaningful
‘real’ life is at the centre (Cohen 1979, p. 186).
From the 1960s until the 1980s, geographers
began to show a better grasp of pilgrimage
research through their focus on the spatial
dimension of the phenomena. For example,
the geographers, Nolan and Nolan, (1989) presented systematic information through an
empirical work on 6,150 Christian holy places
in 16 Western European countries. They have
described and interpreted the various dimensions of contemporary European pilgrimage
with a specific focus on their environmental
location. They also raised the complex issues
involved in respect of three sorts of groups
who visit religious sites: traditional pilgrims,
members of packaged religious tours and mass
tourists checking off sites on their vacation
itinerary.
In addition to studying the effects of total
distance on movement, geographers have
started examining the routes of movement, and
catchment areas of pilgrims, as well as questions
of size and scale, hierarchical relationships,
location and distribution of sacred places. All
these and the development of sites constitute
some of the topics that contribute to a better
understanding of pilgrimages (Bhardwaj 1997;
Stoddard and Morinis 1997). These topics,
© 2009 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG
NOGA COLLINS-KREINER
among others, are researched by geographers,
but not only by them; it has been shown that the
research field of pilgrimage is mainly dominated by sociologists and anthropologists.
A change in the focus of the research of
pilgrimage – A change could be seen as made
by the sociologists and anthologists, Eade
and Sallnow (1991). They formulated a new
approach with a wider view, from various levels
and aspects: political, cultural, and behavioural, as well as taking into account the tourist
perspective. This new approach reflects the heterogeneity of pilgrimage, as it appears in theoretical and analytical studies, and introduces a
new basis for comparing pilgrimages throughout the world that sees the journey as an arena
for competing religious and secular discourses
(Eade & Sallnow 1991; Lewis 1991).
More recent writing evinces a high level of
uniformity in pilgrims’ beliefs across the different religions. Pilgrimage may therefore be
viewed as a phenomenon cutting across religions and cultures and possessing uniform
patterns and concepts. At present, research
stresses the importance of what the pilgrims
themselves say about their pilgrimage, since
they are its main ‘elements’. Contemporary
sociology studies also discuss the neglect of this
issue in the current literature (Reader & Walter
1993).
The geographer Stoddard (1997) claims that
scholars need both an acceptable definition
of pilgrimage and a workable classification
scheme that reveals significant differences in
various kinds. He offered three potential criteria that possess the greatest discriminatory
power for a geographical classification: length
of the journey, the pilgrims’ route and their
frequency of pilgrimage. Other criteria are the
pilgrims’ destination, the importance of pilgrimage places and the pilgrims’ motivation
(Stoddard 1997). Rinschede (1997), also a
geographer, claims that geographical aspects of
pilgrimage can be studied at various levels,
which often imply varying types of investigation: pilgrimage at individual places, pilgrimage within countries and cultural regions,
pilgrimage from a general and worldwide perspective and pilgrimage features requiring
interdisciplinary integration. Each of these
GEOGRAPHERS AND PILGRIMAGES
levels has its own characteristics and emphases,
and requires needs specific methods of investigation and presentation (Rinschede 1997).
In the 1990s research had started to deal with
the complicated relationship between pilgrimage and tourism. This connection is the subject
of Eade’s (1992) article, which describes the
interaction between pilgrims and tourists at
Lourdes, in Bowman’s (1991) work on the
place of Jerusalem in the various Christianities,
and in Rinschede’s (1992) typology of tourist
uses of pilgrimage sites. Cohen, (1992) also
maintains that pilgrimage and tourism differ in
terms of the direction of the journey undertaken. The ‘pilgrim’ and the ‘pilgrim-tourist’
peregrinate toward their socio-cultural centre,
while the ‘traveller’ and the ‘traveller-tourist’
move in the opposite direction. This distinction
applies particularly to journeys to formal pilgrimage centres. However, journeys to popular
pilgrimage centres, which are typically ‘centres
out there’, will often be marked by a mixture of
features characteristic both of pilgrimage and
tourism.
Bhardwaj, a cultural geographer (1997)
researched Hindu pilgrimage from a geographical point of view. He classified pilgrimages and holy places, examined their
distribution, analysed their temporal dimension, developed new themes and pointed out
several research directions such as replicable
classification. He also noticed that different
researchers, geographers and others use the
same methods and subjects in their research.
As we have noted, until the 1990s geographical studies of pilgrimage were scarcely to be
found, and even a basic geographical theme
such as the location of sites was addressed
mainly by sociologists and anthropologists. It
seems as though the shift in the scope of the
research on pilgrimage made by Eade and
Sallnow (1991) who introduced a new basis for
work, made it possible for other disciplines
such as geography and tourism to participate
and add their voices to the research on pilgrimage research. Thus we can now see more
and more geographers taking a part in such
studies.
The new interest of geographers in pilgrimage
– The new interest of geographers in pilgrimage emerged in the 1990s and especially in the
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2000s. They raised some interesting political,
cultural, behavioural, economic, touristic and
geographical research subjects. In current
usage the term ‘pilgrimage’ connotes a religious journey, ‘a journey of a pilgrim; especially: one to a shrine or a sacred place’
(Webster’s Dictionary) but its derivation from the
Latin peregrinus allows broader interpretations,
including foreigner, wanderer, exile and traveller, as well as newcomer and stranger. The term
‘tourist’ – ‘one that makes a tour for pleasure
or culture’ (Webster’s Dictionary) also has Latin
origins, namely tornus, one who makes a circuitous journey, usually for pleasure, and returns
to the starting point. Smith (1992), an anthropologist, claims that the contemporary use of
the terms, identifying the ‘pilgrim’ as a religious traveller and the ‘tourist’ as a vacationer,
is a culturally constructed polarity that veils the
travellers’ motives.
Analysis of this relationship has focused on
the similarity and the difference between the
tourist and the pilgrim (MacCannell 1973;
Turner & Turner 1978; Cohen 1992, 1998;
Smith 1992; Vukonič 1996; Collins-Kreiner &
Kliot 2000; Digance 2003, 2006; Timothy &
Olsen 2006). Still, the persistent use of two
different terms (i.e. ‘pilgrim’ as a religious traveller and ‘tourist’ as a vacationer) is a socially
binary construction that veils (or blurs) individual motives (Smith 1992).
Pilgrims and tourists are distinct actors situated at opposite ends of Smith’s continuum of
travel that first appeared in 1992. The polarities on the pilgrimage-tourism axis are labelled
sacred vs. secular; between them ranges an
almost endless list of possible sacred-secular
combinations, with the central area now generally termed ‘religious tourism’. These positions reflect the multiple and changing
motivations of the traveller whose interests and
activities may switch from tourism to pilgrimage and vice versa, even without the individual
being aware of the change. Jackowski and
Smith (1992) use the term ‘knowledge-based
tourism’ as synonymous with religious tourism.
Most researchers identify ‘religious tourism’
with the individual’s quest for shrines and
locales where, in lieu of piety, visitors seek to
experience the sense of identity with sites of
historical and cultural meaning (Nolan &
Nolan 1989).
© 2009 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG
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Gatrell and Reid (2002), both geographers,
claim that tourism, like pilgrimage, is embedded within a complex of socio-spatial processes
that are historically, culturally, and locally
dependent. Both are complex systems comprising perceptions, expectations and experience
(Gatrell & Reid 2002; McCann 2002; Petric &
Mrnjavac 2003). Modern tourism is regarded as
one of the newer phenomena in the new world
but, turning to its origins, we see that it is
rooted in pilgrimage. The study of the relationship between religion, pilgrimage and tourism
has generally focused separately on religion or
tourism, depending on the case, with little
equal or comparative treatment of the two
together. This is surprising as the development
of leisure, hence tourism, cannot be understood without a study of religion and a grasp of
the practice of pilgrimage in ancient times.
This connection has indeed been the subject of
current research (Timothy & Olsen, 2006;
Vukonič, 2002).
The geographers, Holloway and Valins
(2002) state that in order to understand the
connection between secular and religious
tourism, geographies of religion can provide
key insights into the secular and sacred sociospatial processes that shape everyday life in
local places around the world. Digance (2003),
a tourism and hospitality management researcher, argues that, at the most basic level,
pilgrimage ‘as a practice’ requires a consecrated space that sets the experience apart
from the ordinary and the secular, and makes it
possible for an individual to access God or the
divine figure in his or her cosmology.
Given the simultaneous status of pilgrimage
as centre, periphery, other and liminal, the
process and places occupy a unique space in
the imagination of both religious and secular
tourism – what Soja, a geographer (1980) calls
a ‘third space’. By perceiving religious sites as a
‘third space’ that exists beyond and between
the lived and the planned world, researchers
should be able to unlock and deconstruct the
social practices of the religious and secular
tourist at religious sites. The ‘third space’ idea
will enable them to avoid the simplified notions
of ‘religious traveller’ or ‘vacationer’ as pilgrim
and tourist, respectively (Cohen 1992; Smith
1992) insofar as these two groups are linked in
a shared space. Indeed, a revised religious
© 2009 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG
NOGA COLLINS-KREINER
tourism paradigm based in part on the notion
of ‘third space’ acknowledges – in implicit and
explicit terms – the interdependent nature of
the two actors and the social construction of
a site as simultaneously sacred and secular
(Gatrell & Collins-Kreiner 2006).
Alderman (2002) used the term ‘pilgrimage
landscape’ to highlight the relationships
between people and place. No place is intrinsically sacred. Pilgrimages and their attendant
landscapes are ‘social constructions’. They do
not simply emerge but undergo what Seaton
(1999, 2002) calls ‘sacralisation’ – a sequential
process by which tourism attractions are
marked as meaningful, quasi-religious shrines.
Santos’s (2002) study on route-based tourism
along the Camino de Santiago also discusses
the blend of the different demands and motivations of pilgrims and tourists.
The word ‘pilgrimage’ itself is becoming
widely used in broad and secular contexts – for
example, visits to war graves or the graves and
residences of celebrities, visits to churchyards
and to funerary sites, as sacred and secular
pilgrimage. One instance is Elvis Presley’s
mansion and tomb in Memphis (Reader &
Walter 1993; Alderman 2002). This kind of
tourism is also called ‘thanatourism’ or ‘dark
tourism’ today (Seaton 1999, 2002; Stone
2006). Scholars have begun to think about
other forms of pilgrimage, such as spiritual
tourists, the latest romantics, or hippies who
started frequenting India and the Himalayas
beginning in the 1960s. There is also a growing
market in ‘New Age’ spiritual travel for pilgrimage, personal growth and non-traditional spiritual practices (Attix 2002), and an increasing
amount of research is being done on modern
secular pilgrimage where the search for the
miraculous is a trait shared by religious and
secular pilgrims alike.
All pilgrims, religious or secular, share the
trait of searching for a mystical or magicoreligious experience – a moment when they
experience something out of the ordinary that
marks a transition from the mundane secular
world of their everyday existence to a special
and sacred state. These experiences can be
described in various ways: transformation,
enlightenment, life-changing events or
consciousness-changing events, but words seem
inadequate to describe experiences that often
GEOGRAPHERS AND PILGRIMAGES
are not amenable to reason. Today masses of
tourists, pilgrims and local people compete for
use of the resource base, such as transport,
infrastructure and parking space around
shrines and cathedrals.
The tourism point of view seems to be the
uniting subject in the current research into
pilgrimage. It also adds strength to the studies
by geographers as they have an important role
in tourism research. We could say that geographers have re-established their interest in pilgrimage through the research into this topic.
Subjects such as the economic, social, cultural
and political impacts of pilgrimage have been
reinvestigated through the lens of tourism. The
literature on pilgrimage and religious tourism
is still fragmented and lacks synthesis and holistic conceptualisation but it seems that a
common theme – the tourism point of view –
was found.
FINDINGS: MAIN CHANGES IN THE
RESEARCH OF PILGRIMAGE
This section underlines seven of the most significant changes and redefinitions that have
occurred in pilgrimage studies. The transformations described are on different analytical
levels. Some are theoretical or methodological
and some are empirical changes in the real
world. For example, the current approximation
between tourism and pilgrimage is not only a
consequence of a theoretical recognition of the
homology between the tourist’s and the pilgrim’s quest, but also part of the contemporary,
post-modern travellers’ tendency to mix pilgrimage and tourism in their trips more often
than they have in the past. These are two very
different issues that are linked together. In this
way, the tendency of contemporary researchers
to include spiritual journeys under the pilgrimage label is due to theoretical considerations,
while the assumed homology of the quest –
the gradient-less post-modern tourist-pilgrim
continuum – is due to de-differentiation.
First, differentiation is giving way to dedifferentiation. Earlier theories concentrated on different typologies of tourists and pilgrims as part
of the differentiation between visit-related
experiences and real life (MacCannell 1973;
Cohen 1979, 1992; Smith 1989, 1992). In the
last decade a tendency toward dedifferentiation
7
has been observed. Some researchers claim
that the differences between tourism, pilgrimage and even secular pilgrimage are narrowing
(Bilu 1998; Kong 2001).
Others, such as Urry (2001), consider the
relation of tourism and everyday life; they maintain that although a difference still exists, it is
not as sharp as asserted in earlier theories, and
that current combinations of work and tourism
are a good example of this blurring. The roots
of this dedifferentiation were evident as early as
the 1970s when MacCannell (1973) argued that
the tourist is searching for something different,
for authenticity. Over the years this discussion
expanded, especially in the 1990s when various
researchers, such as Reader and Walter (1993),
Seaton (1999, 2002), Digance (2003) and many
more, added knowledge regarding secular sites
and secular aspects of pilgrimage research.
Sites, experiences and terms such as ‘dark
tourism’, ‘thanatourism’, ‘popular culture’,
and ‘New Age pilgrimage’ have added to this
transition of research toward the experience of
the individual and to dedifferentiation.
Dedifferentiation is further emphasised by
viewing religious sites as a ‘third space’ (Soja
1980), which enables researchers to avoid the
simplified notions of ‘religious traveller’ or
‘vacationer’ as pilgrim and tourist, respectively.
Indeed, this revised religious tourism paradigm, based in part on the notion of ‘third
space’, acknowledges both implicitly and
explicitly the interdependent nature of the two
actors and the social construction of a site as
being, at one and the same time, both sacred
and secular.
Second, this paper shows how dedifferentiation has also penetrated the study of pilgrimage
in terms of its multidisciplinary treatment. The
cross-currents have become so substantial that,
at times, it is difficult to distinguish between
contributions from geography and those from
other disciplines. In particular, there is a
growing rapprochement with the field of
anthropology (Kong 2001). Convergences are
likewise sometimes observed with sociology,
history, religious studies and, lately, with the
leisure and tourism fields. This dedifferentiation operates on both sides: by nongeographers, who recognise the spatial
dimension of pilgrimage, and by geographers,
whose field is influenced by these other
© 2009 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG
8
disciplines. Bhardwaj states: ‘pilgrimage
research in geography is increasingly being
anchored to endogenous cultural and perceptual worlds rather than to a priori spatial theories’ (Bhardwaj 1997).
Thus, an interesting point emerges regarding this dedifferentiation between the
different researchers, geographers and nongeographers, in the study both of tourism and
pilgrimage. Geographers tend to concentrate
on spatial elements such as location and movement, and it is evident that their writing does
not, nor can it, ignore other social, economic
and cultural aspects. On the other hand,
anthropologists, researchers of religion, sociologists and others cover the geographical
aspect in their studies, be it the location of the
holy site, the meaning of this location, and the
process that the pilgrim undergoes through his
or her travels. All recognise that the spatial
movement is an important part of the pilgrimage, but also that it is, precisely, only a part. We
could argue, then, that geographers concern
themselves primarily with the spatial elements
of the pilgrimage – as well as various other
issues while non-geographers mainly address
non-geographical aspects – as well as some geographical ones.
Third, a shift can be observed from an examination of ‘external’ elements to research of
the ‘inner experience’. Until the 1980s, most
research concerned the sites themselves –
location, characteristics and meaning – or the
overall sociological feature of the community
undergoing a liminal process. Since the 1980s
and, even more so, during the 1990s, one can
see how the individual and his or her personal
experience have become the centre of interest.
Researchers such as Smith (1989, 1992), Cohen
(1992), Fleischer (2000), Poria et al. (2003,
2004), Collins-Kreiner & Gatrell (2006) and
many others have started to look more specifically into these aspects.
Fourth, a change is observed from viewing
pilgrimage as a general and comprehensive
phenomenon to its analysis as an individual,
hence more pluralistic, entity. Many past works
presented pilgrimage as a general phenomenon (Turner 1969; Nolan and Nolan 1989,
1992; Vukonič 1996). Over time, in a gradual
process a shift has taken place, first toward
typologies, for example, Cohen’s (1979, 1992,
© 2009 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG
NOGA COLLINS-KREINER
1998) typology of the different experiences of a
visitor. The second stage involved deconstruction of the typologies, including classification
of visitor experiences into sub-types, for
example, pilgrims being placed along the pilgrimage experience (Collins-Kreiner & Kliot
2000). The next stage in research was to understand that a visitor may have different experiences, and may switch from one to another. As
suggested by Poria et al. (2003, 2004), the experience and mental state of the visitor can
change in time and intensity according to his or
her different characteristics.
This understanding resulted in the fifth
change, which may be regarded as a movement
from the object to the subject, hence from
objectivity to subjectivity. In earlier works the
emphasis was placed on the way the objective,
namely the pilgrimage, provided one kind of
experience or another. In later research the
experience is shown to depend on the visitor
and how he or she perceives his or her visit and
experience. As a result of this perception, it is
now clear that each person may interpret his or
her own experience differently and it is not
enough to focus solely on the experience
offered by the objective. Current research on
pilgrimage emphasises the aspect of subjectivity. One of the foremost works in this direction
was written by Poria et al. (2003, 2004), who
diverge from the traditional research approach
that focuses only on the heritage site. They
argue that, from now on, the visitor’s experience at the site as well as his or her individual
impressions should be examined. They demonstrate this approach at sites such as the Western
Wall in Jerusalem and the Anne Frank house in
Amsterdam.
Tourism literature usually turns most of its
attention to the effect of tourism on the local
population and only little to its effect on the
visitors themselves in duration and intensity.
Only recently have researchers started to
examine the effect of the visit on the visitors
more specifically (Sharpley & Sundaram 2005;
Maoz 2006; Poria et al. 2006).
The sixth change is evident in some of the
emerging literature that illustrates how the
areas of research and analysed sites should be
expanded, farther afield than the ‘officially
sacred’. In recent years researchers have begun
to state that other places also fully deserve
9
GEOGRAPHERS AND PILGRIMAGES
research attention (Reader & Walter 1993).
They mean spiritual festivals and sites, war
memorials and graves, secular shrines, sport
activities and other experiences in addition to
sacred constructions.
Seventh, a more general transformation can
be seen in the pilgrimage research discourse
and texts. Until the 1980s writers held numerous debates and engaged in manifold controversies. An example is the famous debate over
Eliade’s (1969) concept of the ‘centre of the
world’ and Turner and Turner’s (1978)
concept of the ‘centre out there’ concerning
the location of holy sites. Another debate was
between MacCannell (1973) and Boorstin
(1964) on the subject of ‘authenticity’.
However, since the 1990s, the literature has
evinced hardly any mutual criticism of the validity of the sundry theories. Each researcher presents a different aspect of the phenomenon
using their own paradigm, methodology and
experience to study the subject. Of course, they
are not necessarily right, but the issue of ‘right’
and ‘wrong’ seems less important in the postmodern world, or may not even exist.
The ‘either-or’ approach of theories is yielding to a ‘both-and’ approach. Researchers
speak of ‘interpretations’ instead of ‘true’ or
‘false’. Every researcher has his or her own
assumptions and perceptions with which they
interpret the world and its various phenomena.
This is reflected in the very points made in the
paper: there are no absolute criteria of judgement of interpretative versions, no typologies
left because, for example, individual experiences can change from moment to moment
and there are no clear-cut distinctions between
pilgrimage sites and tourist attractions. The
major implication of the ‘both-and’ approach is
that contradictions do not matter, since everything is acceptable. But the point is that though
everything may be in a state of flux, we can still
discover structures beneath the surface as has
been shown earlier. This move does not imply
the collapse of all existing theories in the field
of pilgrimage studies. The transformation is
not as sharp and dramatic as some researchers
attempt or would like to present. The current
areas of pilgrimage research are still based on
the existing theories, and the transition is still
perceived as an expansion and not a contradiction of the existing ones.
The question is whether further steps toward
adopting new theories in pilgrimage research
will threaten the ability to build future knowledge in a solid manner, leading to a consistent
understanding of the pilgrimage phenomenon. It seems that allowing a multiplicity of
interpretations and interpreters, none of which
are exclusive, has offered a way out of the
contest between competing explanations and
research agendas.
CONCLUSIONS: THE MEANING OF
PILGRIMAGE
Today, studying the meaning of pilgrimage
transcends geographical and sociological
aspects. It involves an interpretative approach
to seeking an alternative meaning, one hitherto
neglected. Present studies assume that pilgrimages are products of the culture in which they
were created; hence they tell us ‘stories’ from
political, religious, cultural and social standpoints. These pilgrimages are products of the
norms and values of social tradition and order
and, at the same time, are the creators of such
culture and tradition. Researchers today challenge existing theories and reject the clear-cut
divisions of prevailing research. The trends of
deconstruction, of breaking down existing
theories, together with a tendency to emphasise
the subjective and not the objective, and
with growing attention to one’s individual
experience – all fit in with the new view.
All these trends, together with increasing
dedifferentiation of pilgrimage, tourism and
secular tourism, and even with the narrowing
difference between the wish of people to search
for a new meaning to their everyday life show
that the study of pilgrimage has shifted. This
suggests that a theoretical change has occurred, and not only a methodological shift.
The change in the theoretical base includes
removal of distinctions that were accepted in
the past and a growing inability to distinguish
between the different perceptions and research
areas, which are now becoming integrated. It is
part of a post-modern deconstruction of older
typologies and categorisations.
This paper suggests that the difference
between traditional pilgrims and tourists will be
fading, while numerous points of similarity will
emerge: both require spatial movement and
© 2009 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG
10
both involve an emotional desire on the part of
the individual to visit sites meaningful to him or
her. But overall, the visitor experience, be it
called pilgrimage or tourism, is in fact not
homogeneous and comprises different types.
Visitors’ motivations are also highly diverse,
ranging from curiosity to the search for
meaning. Differing market segments of visitors
go to the various sites, holy or not and this
occurs even though the reasons for visiting and
the activities at the site are wholly different.
One of the key issues of this research relates
to the existence of a continuum between the
different visitors – not according to their
description as pilgrims or tourists as was found
by Smith in 1992, but according to the effect
of the visit on them. Tourism literature usually
pays most attention to the effect of tourism on
the local population and little to the effect on
the visitors themselves. By this we mean its
duration, strength and level. The differing
experiences of the visitor, whether pilgrim or
tourist, should thus be shown on a scale
according to their effect in time and their
strength: to what extent the visitor was
affected after his or her return home from the
visit, regardless of his or her initial classification as a tourist or pilgrim.
Three stages of change can be recognised: in
external characteristics, in perceptions, and in
attitudes. It is possible that no change at all will
happen during the visit. If a change does occur
in the first stage, it will be evident in the visitors’
external features such as their language,
clothes, haircut and jewellery. In the perception stage, a change may be observed in the
visitor’s outlook on life and his or her beliefs or
behaviour may start to alter as he or she adopts
certain new concepts from the place and the
local population he or she meets. In the third
and last stage, a mental change or a change in
attitude occurs. All of those changes are noted
in current research of Western visitors to the
East. For example, various researchers such as
Maoz (2006, 2007), Sharpley and Sundaram
(2005), and Collins-Kreiner and Sagie (forthcoming) have found that differing visitors
underwent different experiences according
to their age, gender, status in life and other
factors.
Everyone has different expectations from his
or her tour. The question is to what degree. At
© 2009 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG
NOGA COLLINS-KREINER
one end of the scale are the spiritual visitors
(not definitely pilgrims), the spiritual sites and
the spiritual experiences which constitute
searching for new meanings to life; and the visit
changes their lives. At the opposite end are
visitors who are not affected by their visit. A
visitor can move along the continuum: for
example, Western visitors to the East who left
their homes as secular visitors and were affected
by their visit and thus returned home as spiritual visitors (Sharpley & Sundaram 2005).
It is time for the contemporary use of the
terms, identifying the ‘pilgrim’ as a religious
traveller and the ‘tourist’ as a vacationer, to
allow broader interpretations in accordance
with the Latin and Greek origins of the words.
The existence of the scale reinforces the
emerging connection between the two mobilities of tourism and pilgrimage presented
earlier. Any distinction between the pilgrimages of the past and today’s tourism is hard to
discern: pilgrims cannot be differentiated
from tourists. Both kinds may be motivated to
undergo an experience that will add more
meaning to their lives.
SUMMARY
This paper reviews research on pilgrimage,
and highlights conclusions from geography
and allied disciplines in order to show the differences and the similarities in research. It is
suggested that though the field is incoherent,
much of the literature does pay attention to
several key themes, particularly, location of
religious places, identity of the participants,
the visitor experience and the emerging convergence between pilgrimage and modern
tourism.
Geographers evidently have something to
contribute to contemporary debates about
pilgrimage, tourism, space and experience
emerging across a range of disciplines. In
reviewing these central themes, which highlight the value of a new direction in the geography of pilgrimage the research have not only
contextualised recent work in geography, but
also identified how this area of research is and
ought to be taken forward, drawing upon specific theoretical developments that have been
influential.
GEOGRAPHERS AND PILGRIMAGES
Acknowledgement
I wish to extend special thanks to Professor Nurit
Kliot who reviewed the various drafts of this paper
and encouraged me so much.
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