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Examining The Pilgrims’ Experience: Communitas Along The Camino De Santiago, Snežana Brumec

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

To what extent does the community formed among pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago correspond to Turner’s concept of communitas? How might pilgrimage with significant others differ from individual pilgrimages in the sense of community? This study attempts to answer these questions based on qualitative and quantitative content analysis of 32 travelogues written by pilgrims who completed the pilgrimage alone or with relatives or friends. The findings show that pilgrims develop an egalitarian and creative community that prevails the notion of a generic bond between people, an intense comradeship and generous common friendliness. In such a community, pilgrims’ behaviour is …

Family Pilgrimage Along The Camino De Santiago In Poland: Forms, Conditions And Prospects For Development, Franciszek Mróz, Sławomir Tykarski, Marcin Gazda

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

This study presents an analysis of the forms of family pilgrimage along the Polish sections of the Way of St. James. The purpose of the research is to understand the current status of family pilgrimage along the route to Santiago de Compostela in Poland, as well as to specify the determinants of the development of this type of pilgrimage. The forms of family pilgrimage along the Way of St. James in Poland and the importance of such pilgrimages in deepening intra-family relations are presented based on interviews and testimonies collected, as well as on several years of experience in organising …

A Semester On The Road To Santiago: The Long-Term Impacts Of Walking The Camino De Santiago With A Family-Like Study Abroad Group, Douglas Challenger

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

In this paper, research findings are presented from a small, longitudinal study using qualitative data on the long-term impacts of a unique, semester-long, study abroad program at Franklin Pierce University. In this programme, students study the history and contemporary renaissance of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage and then walk the entire route in northern Spain as pilgrims. Alumni who participated in one of four trips conducted in the fall of 2011, 2013, 2015 and 2017 were asked in 2022 to respond to five open-ended questions about how their semester abroad impacted their lives, to what degree they thought their study-abroad …

Family Pilgrimage On The Camino De Santiago In Spain: Typology And Impact, Piotr Roszak, Jesus Tanco

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

This article presents an analysis of contemporary forms of family pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela and prospect for its development after the pandemic of 2021-2022. Based on information about family pilgrimages in Spain, we examine its therapeutic benefits, its challenges and difficulties, and its place within competing forms of pilgrimage. The ‘family modality’ extends to pilgrimage within any intentional family, such as one’s academic and professional companions, recovering addicts traveling for mutual support, like-minded religious confraternities sharing a communal experience of the journey, and pilgrims trekking on behalf of family members left behind as a manifestation of voluntary surrogate pilgrimage.

Mapping Pilgrims’ Experience Of Walking The Saint James Way Through The Lens Of Self-Regulation, Clara Vieira, Jennifer Cunha, Ana Rita Nunes, Luísa Mota Ribeiro, Pedro Rosário

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

The Way of St. James is a very well-known and ancient pilgrimage, with various routes leading pilgrims to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Spain, where the remains of Saint James are buried. Over the last few years, the experience of the pilgrimage and the growing number of pilgrims walking the Saint James Way have been attracting researchers’ attention. However, studies attempting to understand the pilgrims’ experience using a self-regulation lens are limited. Self-regulation may be defined as efforts made to manage individuals’ thoughts, emotions, and behaviours in the pursuit of long-term goals. Therefore, rooted in the self-regulation framework, …

Contemporary Trends In The Theological Understanding Of Christian Pilgrimage, Piotr Roszak

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

This paper analyses the historical changes that have taken place in the Christian theology of pilgrimage from Patristics to the present time. Against that background, it identifies the core parameters of the theological debate on pilgrimage, including its foundation in the truths of the faith and its key dimensions. In view of attempts to reduce the essence of pilgrimage to phenomenological descriptions in contemporary analyses, the author proposes to take advantage of the explicatory potential of hylomorphism as a theory that differentiates between matter and form. When applied to pilgrimage, hylomorphism makes it possible to integrate theological perspectives with the …

Hospitality On The Camino De Santiago: Clues From Interviews With Hospitaleros During The Pandemic, Berenika Seryczynska, Piotr Roszak, Tomasz Duda

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

The practice of making the pilgrimage along the Camino de Santiago (the Way of Saint James), one of the three most important medieval pilgrimage routes in Europe, has undergone various transformations related to religious, cultural and political considerations. In 2019, the Pilgrim’s Reception Office in Santiago de Compostela recorded 327,378 pilgrims from all over the world. The aim of this research was to understand the impact of the pandemic on hospitaleros – the individuals who host pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago – and perform a comparative analysis against the hotel industry. In particular, it was noted that in a …

Pilgering Researchers Or Researching Pilgrims: Experiences From Four Student Projects On The Camino De Santiago 2016-2019, Andreas Braun

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

Between 2016 and 2019, I accompanied four student groups on the Camino de Santiago - however the planned 2020 project was cancelled due to the coronavirus epidemic. In this article, I describe the project, its planning, its implementation, and its conclusion, as well as some experiences and impressions of the participating students on the basis of an ethnographical approach. The projects presented have two objectives: on the one hand, to teach the students qualitative and quantitative research methods in a delimited, protected environment, and on the other hand, to introduce the students to the fascination of pilgrimage and the Camino …

The Way Of St. James In Religious Tourism Research, Xose M. Santos

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

The Camino de Santiago as a tourist and cultural phenomenon has grown exponentially in recent decades. This route, of medieval origin, began to receive general attention in the second half of the 20th century. This interest manifested itself almost in parallel in two interconnected areas. On the one hand, there is the revival of traditional pilgrimages, i.e. on foot or by non-mechanised means of transport. On the other hand, the Way of St. James has become an object of attention in research, initially with a historical and artistic focus, but as time goes by, a tourist perspective is incorporated into …

Dimensions Of The Saint James’ Way Pilgrimage: Portuguese Socioeconomic Impacts, Vítor João Pereira Domingues Martinho Prof.

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

These days pilgrimage is seen as something that has more than a religious dimension. In fact, pilgrimage also currently links with cultural, environmental and tourist domains. As a consequence, the positive socioeconomic effects from the pilgrimage are relevant for the local communities which are visited along the routes travelled by pilgrims. In this way, the aim of this paper is to firstly analyse the context of the Way of St. James’ pilgrimage, in general, and subsequently the socioeconomic dimensions of the pilgrimage within the specific Portuguese framework. Data from the ‘Oficina del Peregrino’, Eurostat and Statistics Portugal were all taken …

Manifestations Of Religious Freedom In The Context Of The Camino De Santiago, Berenika Seryczyńska

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

This study analyses the positive manifestations of religious freedom among pilgrims on the Way of St James (Camino de Santiago, Spain), a pilgrimage way that pilgrims have followed to the tomb of St James the Apostle in Spanish Galicia, since the Middle Ages. The purpose of this study is to present the manifestations of religious freedom in the experience of Polish pilgrims on the Way of Saint James on the basis of in-depth interviews conducted in the summer of 2019 in Santiago de Compostela (n=50).

Place And Space In Walking Pilgrimage, Ken Wilson

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

What kind of experience of territory is produced by walking pilgrimages? Do they generate experiences of place or space as with the definitions provided by Yi-Fu Tuan in Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience? This paper addresses these questions by considering Tuan’s distinction between space and place and various attempts at deconstructing that binary opposition. It looks at three texts about walking that seem to turn space into place--Nan Shepherd’s The Living Mountain, Thelma Poirier’s Rock Creek, and Iain Sinclair’s London Orbital: A Walk Around the M25--before considering the author's own failure to turn space into place during an …

Creative Escapism And The Camino De Santiago, Berenika Seryczyńska

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

The phenomenon of escapism, extensively analyed in the key mechanism of escape into the world of illusion and imagination in numerous sociological and psychological studies, has not yet been researched from a theological perspective or described in the context of pilgrimage. Nevertheless, the existing studies encourage this type of reflection, indicating that escapism seems to be one of the ways to solve social problems by turning towards religiousness. This is the case for pilgrims on their journey to the tomb of St. James the Apostle in Santiago de Compostela. The studies of pilgrims reveal the escapist motivations behind the decision …

A Conceptual Model For Assessing The Level Of Development Of Pilgrimage Routes, Vitor Ambrósio, Carlos Fernandes, Goretti Silva, Adília Cabral

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

This paper proposes an innovative conceptual model based on a hierarchical structure for the assessment of pilgrimage routes, establishing and weighting the different associated elements. Based on a holistic approach, a Diagnostic Matrix was created which structures the surveying of predefined variables and enables the evaluation of pilgrimage routes. This tool allows an understanding of both, material and immaterial elements that comprise part of pilgrimage experiences, and of the respective routes as tourism products. Based on the case of the Portuguese Camino de Santiago, the proposed matrix enables the diagnosis of the entire route, as well as partial analysis, which …

Determinants Of Intentions To Use A Pilgrimage App: A Cross-Cultural Comparison, Suzanne Amaro, Paulo Alexandre O. Duarte, Angela Isabel Lopes Antunes

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

The main aim of this study is to examine which features pilgrims from six nationalities walking the Camino de Santiago most value in a pilgrimage app and to determine which ones most influence intentions to use it. Data were collected through an online questionnaire. The 911 responses were analysed using ANOVA and PLS-SEM. The features related to general information are the strongest predictor of intentions to use a pilgrimage app and there is only one significant difference among nationalities regarding the determinants of intentions to use it. The findings of the study are useful for the development of pilgrimage apps.

The Physiological Effects Of Walking Pilgrimage, M. Brennan Harris

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

M. Brennan Harris presents in ‘The Healthy Body’ his kinesiological research conducted on the Camino de Santiago, examining the effects of walking pilgrimage on the self-identified experience of well-being in pilgrim bodies.

When Brother Becomes Other: Communitas And Conflict Along The Camino De Santiago, Megan E. Havard

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

It is widely believed, both by scholars and practitioners of pilgrimage, that during the rite most if not all pilgrims experience communitas - a sense of community, of mutual understanding and acceptance of their fellow ritual initiates that is unfettered by traditional social structures or markers of difference. Nevertheless, evidence indicates that conflict also regularly arises among pilgrims, even as they navigate the same liminoid space in pursuit of a common goal. Pilgrims may experience conflict with one another due to differences in personality, divergent cultural backgrounds, the perception of scarcity of resources, the intrinsic stress of transformation, or myriad …

Grit Or Grace: Packing For The Camino De Santiago, Megan Havard

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

As the director of a new collegiate study-abroad program that will invite students to complete a segment of a Christian pilgrimage across northern Spain, the Camino de Santiago (Way of St. James), I am tasked with setting the expectations of students, parents and administrators, and with addressing the needs of student travellers. The present chapter analyses several genres of cultural artefacts that novice pilgrims, such as my students, are likely to encounter prior to departure: travel guidebooks and manuals, publications more generally about sacred journeys, pilgrimage memoirs and films. These texts help to frame the journey ahead as a pilgrimage, …

The Camino De Santiago De Compostela (Spain) And The Via Francigena (Italy): A Comparison Between Two Important Historic Pilgrimage Routes In Europe, Guido Lucarno

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

The Italian section of the Via Francigena, a Medieval pilgrimage route to Rome, has not yet been commercialised to its full potential when compared to the Camino de Santiago in Spain. There are many reasons for this under development. First, there is an absence of a specialised organisation focused on utilising the resources available; a difficulty that could be overcome by the forming a tourism body with the specific charter for developing these resources and attracting tourism. Second, the weight of the cultural heritage of Rome in the contest for religious tourism takes away from the valorisation of other pilgrimage …

Kierkegaard’S ‘Repetition’ And Pilgrimage, Stephen F. Haller

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

In 1843, the Danish philosopher Kierkegaard wondered whether it was possible to repeat an experience. He attempted to relive experiences he once had in Berlin by revisiting haunts of his earlier self. After several days, he concluded that his repetition of experience was unsuccessful. Many people make similar attempts at repetition when they make, for example, the pilgrimage to Camino de Santiago multiple times. What could a person hope to gain by this repetition?

What prevents successful repetition, suggests Kierkegaard, is beginning with the end in mind rather than traveling merely to collect random impressions. Repetition fails, argues Kierkegaard, when …