In an effort to provide new ways of theorising pilgrimages as global encounters (White, 2012) and sites of cosmopolitan interactions, I offer a sound-centred investigation into inter-pilgrim musical ...events that occurred along the Camino de Santiago (Camino), a historically Catholic pilgrimage in northern Spain. This ethnomusicological perspective on the Camino highlights contemporary pilgrim rituals and artistic practices that are frequently overlooked in other Camino scholarship, which tends to focus on historical musics or the tangible arts. On the Camino, music primarily facilitates cross-cultural encounters for pilgrims, though at varied levels of mis/understandings. This paper explores the ways that participatory musicking (Small, 1998) connects international pilgrims who otherwise would not have come in contact with one another and reinforces the Camino’s Catholic heritage, despite the recent rise in non-religious walkers. The study is based on participant observation and autoethnographic engagement with musical rituals that occurred in two religious albergues (lodging for pilgrims) during the summer of 2019. Due to increased levels of fleeting global-local interactions between pilgrims, the twenty-first century Camino has become a site for cosmopolitan communal formations, although they are often constructed on the basis of language or nationality. Throughout my research, the religious albergues were significant social spaces for interactions across these barriers, as they emphasised communal evenings and activities involving Western popular or Catholically inspired musics after full days of walking alone. I argue that these participatory rituals utilised assumed cosmopolitan musical knowledges and religious backgrounds in order to create idealised senses of heightened community, conceptualised here in terms of Turnerian communitas. These encounters heavily relied on Western musical aesthetics in order to be meaningful for the pilgrims, and at the same time, national distinctions were constructed and broken down in order to create the feeling of a global pilgrim community. Communitas was only achievable after essentialised difference was first sounded, which it often occurred at the cost of excluding particular groups of pilgrims.
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).
El presente artículo revisa el soporte conceptual de un taller docente que, con el título Arquitectura del agua, Territorio, Imagen y Pensamiento en el contexto del año Jacobeo 2021 con financiación ...pública y a través de la Universidade de A Coruña, se presentó en Galicia en una exposición y en un conjunto de publicaciones. Los aportes investigativos dieron expresión a una forma de entender un territorio a partir de una arquitectura marginal y abundante, y propuso una representación estructurada en análisis de datos y narrativas, de textos e imágenes fijas y en movimiento, que pusieron en evidencia aspectos culturales que superaron la descripción meramente instrumental al apelar a la memoria. El taller se fundamenta en un trabajo de investigación doctoral que entiende que, para tener un conocimiento de la complejidad territorial gallega, expresión de un modo de vida, se deben ineludiblemente entrecruzar lecturas descriptivas, histórica y significativas. Sostiene que las arquitecturas se constituyen como signos de un territorio que las ha construido y que, a su vez, modifican a la comunidad que las habita. Sus vínculos son sus razones de ser y son rastreables en el entorno físico, facilitando un mayor conocimiento del lugar y permitiendo reconstruir su identidad. El objetivo del taller fue, a través del registro sensible y del análisis de los datos existentes en cinco localizaciones radiales a Compostela, demostrar que se puede recuperar la memoria de un territorio e identificar a una arquitectura como su receptáculo. La investigación constató que la persistencia de una arquitectura modesta es una prueba de veracidad que subsiste en un contexto que tiende a borrarlas, modificarlas, ignorarlas o explotarlas. Al representar su orden visible y su dimensión oculta se cuestionó la profundidad de su sentido en el momento presente de cambio.
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 group functioned as a ‘family’ and how that impacted their experience. Twenty-one alumni responded to the questionnaire; all indicating to varying degrees that the program had life-changing impacts that had influenced and were continuing to shape their lives. Their responses are organised into seven themes that describe the long-term impacts of the program. The researcher’s interpretations also draw on his memories and extensive field notes on experiences that occurred on the four trips, as well as the reflective essays students wrote based on their personal journals immediately upon their return from their semester abroad. The results are situated in the context of research on short and long-term impacts of study abroad and within the liberal education mission of U.S. institutions of higher education.
The Camino of Santiago has demonstrated its role as a strategic factor in the socio-economic development of territories. This paper presents a ‘tool kit’ based on Best Practice, aiming at designing, ...developing and operating pilgrimage routes in Latin America, inspired by the lessons learned from the Camino de Santiago strategies and policies. The methodology of the research for this paper is open-ended questionnaires to experts and institutions and online surveys to pilgrims. It also builds on a review of academic literature. The findings show that Latin America is a traditionally religious territory, with a high percentage of the population belonging to religious groups. Pilgrimages have a great potential to bring economic benefits to communities around existing routes and to enhance the development of new ones, which already take place organically but are not fully developed. There is a lack of involvement of the public sector in the design, planning and operation of these routes. Governance in creating policies and in their management is critical to success. Last but not least, strategic and focused marketing is needed where not all tools are valuable and efficient. The Way of Saint James is an inspiring example, but not all practices can be replicated or adapted. Further investigations could analyse other realities (such as Rome, Lourdes, Fátima, etc.) to provide a complete range of benchmarking and enrich the conclusions of this work. The proposed recommendations could be implemented in territories where primary conditions exist and significantly impact the improvement of existing pilgrimage tourism routes or contribute to the development of existing ones. In this work, the Camino has been subjectively considered (as suggested in certain scientific and academic work) as the master model for the development of pilgrimage tourism in territories where the potential for this product exists or can be improved. In this paper, these learnings are suggested in the context of Latin America.
In the summer of 2000, David Hlavsa and his wife Lisa Holtby embarked on a pilgrimage. After trying for three years to conceive a child and suffering through the monthly cycle of hope and ...disappointment, they decided to walk the Camino de Santiago, a joint enterprise-and an act of faith-they hoped would strengthen their marriage and prepare them for parenthood.Though walking more than 400 miles across the north of Spain turned out to be more difficult than they had anticipated, after a series of misadventures, including a brief stay in a Spanish hospital, they arrived in Santiago. Shortly after their return to Seattle, Lisa became pregnant, and the hardships of the Camino were no comparison to what followed: the stillbirth of their first son and Lisa's harrowing second pregnancy.Walking Distanceis a moving and disarmingly funny book, a good story with a happy ending-the safe arrival of David and Lisa's second son, Benjamin. David and Lisa get more than they bargained for, but they also get exactly what they wanted: a child, a solid marriage, and a richer life.
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 sciences that describe the anthropological experience. The paper concludes with an attempt to create a map of the contemporary theology of pilgrimage, including a proposed thematic taxonomy.
Este artículo tiene como objetivo profundizar en la relación que en la filosofía heideggeriana tienen las nociones de “poema” y “habla”. Para ello se realiza un estudio de la obra más representativa ...a este respecto, De camino al habla, y se analiza el vínculo que esta obra tiene con las nociones de “esencia de la verdad” y “esencia del habla”.
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