To the Hausa pilgrims in Sudan, the Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca is more than an episode in a devout life. The journey, with the hardships entailed in crossing savannas and the desert, is a way of life into which they are born, work, raise families, and die. The pilgrims define themselves as transients and live in villages they consider temporary, yet they have lingered en route to Mecca, sometimes for generations. Permanent Pilgrims explores this cultural phenomenon, describing how the Hausa maintain the permanent pilgrimage. C. Bawa Yamba examines why these people allow themselves to live in a state of permanent transition, why they perpetuate a myth of eventual arrival. Moving from their historic beginnings in Nigeria to the rural and urban lifestyles of present-day pilgrims, Yamba presents a thorough ethnography of the Hausa, arguing that for them the pilgrimage is a symbolic journey analogous to life.
The Shikoku pilgrimage, a 1400 kilometre, eighty-eight temple circuit around Japan's fourth largest island, takes around forty days by foot, or one week by car. Historically, Buddhist ascetics walked it without ceasing, creating a tradition of unending pilgrimage that continues in the present era, both by pilgrims on foot and by others in cars. Some spend decades walking the pilgrimage, while others drive it repeatedly, completing hundreds of pilgrimage circuits. Most are retired and make the pilgrimage the centre of their post-work lives. Others who work full-time spend their holidays and weekends as pilgrims. Some have only done the pilgrimage a few times but already imagine themselves as unending pilgrims and intend to do it "until we die". They talk happily of being addicted and having Shikokuby?, 'Shikoku illness', portraying this 'illness' and addiction as blessings. Featuring extensive fieldwork and interviews, this study of Japan's most famous Buddhist pilgrimage presents new theoretical perspectives on pilgrimage in general, along with rich ethnographic examples of pilgrimage practices in contemporary Japan. Pilgrims Until We Die counteracts normative portrayals of pilgrimage as a transient activity, defined by a temporary leave of absence from home to visit sacred places outside the parameters of everyday life, showing that many participants view pilgrimage as a way of creating a sense of home and permanence on the road. Examining how obsession, devotion, and a sense of addiction aided by modern developments and economic factors have created a culture of recurrent pilgrimage, Pilgrims Until We Die challenges standard understandings of pilgrimage.
This study involves a fourteen-hundred-kilometer-long pilgrimage around Japan’s fourth largest island, Shikoku. In traveling the circuit of the eighty-eight Buddhist temples that make up the route, pilgrims make their journey together with Kôbô Daishi (774–835), the holy miracle-working figure who is at the heart of the pilgrimage. Once seen as a marginal practice, recent media portrayal of the pilgrimage as a symbol of Japanese cultural heritage has greatly increased the number of participants, both Japanese and foreign. In this absorbing look at the nature of the pilgrimage, Ian Reader examines contemporary practices and beliefs in the context of historical development, taking into account theoretical considerations of pilgrimage as a mode of activity and revealing how pilgrimages such as Shikoku may change in nature over the centuries. This rich ethnographic work covers a wide range of pilgrimage activity and behavior, drawing on accounts of pilgrims traveling by traditional means on foot as well as those taking advantage of the new package bus tours, and exploring the pilgrimage’s role in the everyday lives of participants and the people of Shikoku alike. It discusses the various ways in which the pilgrimage is made and the forces that have shaped it in the past and in the present, including history and legend, the island’s landscape and residents, the narratives and actions of the pilgrims and the priests who run the temples, regional authorities, and commercial tour operators and bus companies. In studying the Shikoku pilgrimage from anthropological, historical, and sociological perspectives, Reader shows in vivid detail the ambivalence and complexity of pilgrimage as a phenomenon that is simultaneously local, national, and international and both marginal and integral to the lives of its participants. Critically astute yet highly accessible, Making Pilgrimages will be welcomed by those with an interest in anthropology, religious studies, and Japanese studies, and will be essential for anyone contemplating making the pilgrimage themselves.
Conflicts, Religion and Culture in Tourism highlights the role of religious tourism and pilgrimage as a tool for improving cultural relations. Helping to form culture and society worldwide, faith plays a vital part in cross-cultural conflict resolution and opening dialogue across peoples. This book shows how faith and activism can respond to the common challenges of peace making and coexistence both within and among the world's many traditions. Conflicts, Religion and Culture in Tourism provides a timely assessment of the increasing linkages and interconnections between religious tourism and secular spaces on a global stage. Written from a multidisciplinary perspective, it provides an invaluable resource for those studying and researching religion, tourism and cultural management.
"This book offers a new theoretical framework for exploring contemporary pilgrimage, exploring examples ranging from the Hajj to the Camino, and arguing that pilgrimage activity should be understood not solely as going to, staying at, and leaving a sacred place, but also as occurring in apparently mundane or domestic times, places, and practices"--
This volume provides a theoretically and empirically-grounded study of the significance of landscape in the experience of Christian pilgrimage across different denominations and its intersection with cultural heritage and tourism. The book focuses on pilgrimages to Meteora (Greece), Subiaco (Italy) and the Isle of Man. These are each sites of scenic beauty that boast a rich heritage associated respectively to Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Ecumenical/ Protestant denominations. The study discusses different Christian theologies, practices and perspectives on the nature and the purpose of pilgrimage in these traditions. It draws on participant experiential accounts, archival research, and interviews with clergy, laity and local stakeholders. Special attention is paid to the themes of sacred space and practice, aesthetics, mobilities, embodiment and performance, emotional geographies, theology, cultural heritage, consumption and commodification, and the pilgrim-tourist continuum.
