Editorial30 April 2026
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- Editorial30 April 2026
IJRTP Volume 14(ii) Table of Contents
Special issue of papers from 16th International Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage Conference, Palermo, Sicily, June 2025. - Academic Paper30 April 2026
From Religious Sites to Cinematographic Sets: Symbolism of Religious Cultural Heritage in the Italian Series ‘Le Indagini di Lolita Lobosco’
Cinema and television, as core components of the creative industries, play a crucial role in transforming cultural heritage into meaningful narrative and symbolic resources. This study explores how religious cultural heritage is reconfigured from sacred sites into cinematographic sets, focusing on the Italian television series Le Indagini di Lolita Lobosco, set in Apulia. Drawing on the cultural and spatial turn in geography and media studies, the research examines the symbolic, aesthetic, and spatial functions of religious architecture and sacred landscapes within the series. Churches, monasteries, and coastal sacred spaces are not treated as mere backdrops, but as narrative devices that contribute to the construction of cinematic space and to the articulation of territorial identity. Through a qualitative spatial-semiotic analysis of selected screenscapes, the study shows how religious heritage participates in shaping both the fictional world of the series and the real-world cultural image of Apulia. The findings highlight the role of television fiction in mediating cultural memory and reinterpreting religious heritage as a dynamic element of contemporary spatial storytelling. - Academic Paper30 April 2026
Sacred Steps: Walking, Religion, and the Path to Peace
Walking is one of the simplest and most primordial human acts, yet it carries profound meanings that transcend cultures, religious traditions, and paths of individual and collective transformation. Walking is not merely a means of movement but a practice that fosters reconnection with oneself, the environment, and the community. Bruce Chatwin, in The Songlines (1987), highlights how nomadism is an inherent human condition, suggesting that movement is essential not only for physical survival but also for mental and spiritual well-being. In an era marked by environmental crises, conflicts, and increasing technological alienation, rediscovering the value of walking responds to a deep need for slowness, awareness, and listening. In religious history, walking has often held ritualistic and symbolic significance. From Buddhist pilgrimages to the spiritual paths of Australian Aboriginal peoples, who weave space, memory, and sacredness through the Songlines, walking has always been an experience of inner transformation and reconciliation with the surrounding reality. The practice of walking as a means of peace and reconciliation will be explored through the analysis of various case studies. First, the Bundian Way, an ancient Aboriginal route linking the Snowy Mountains to the southeastern coast of Australia, will be examined. This path, recently rediscovered and valued, represents a bridge between the historical memory of Indigenous peoples and the process of reconciliation with contemporary society. A second case study will focus on the Buddhist practice of circumambulation (pradakshina), a symbolic gesture expressing devotion and mindfulness through movement around sacred sites such as stupas and mountains. Through an analysis that intertwines anthropological and religious studies, this study aims to reflect on how walking can become not only a daily practice for well-being but also a conscious act of harmonisation with the world and a means of building peace, both on an individual and collective level. - Academic Paper30 April 2026
‘Clothesure’: The End of the Narrative of a Pilgrim’s Clothes; and How Pilgrim’s Clothes Contribute to Narrative Identity
This paper provides the story, or narrative, which explains how pilgrim’s-identity is created and endures through the clothes they wear. The closure, or preferred ending, of this story of a pilgrim’s clothes, would be a ceremonious disposal, like burning them. Pilgrims are reluctant to simply throw their clothes, boots, and gear away. This paper is a philosophical reflection on how a pilgrim’s clothes construct the identity of a pilgrim; and how inanimate objects, like clothes, might become meaningful, or even ‘sacred’ in a non-religious way. This comes about because of a decision to treat them that way. We make sense of our lives in terms of stories we tell about them. Narrative is what unifies a life, and chapters of that life, into a whole, with a beginning, middle and end. This unification constructs our identity, and it is how we know we are the same person today as we were 20 years ago. The very process of linking together selected events, that are chosen as relevant, creates a meaning that explains how one event led to another. All stories come to an end, which provides the punctuation of closure which all stories must have. Clothes are part of this unifying narrative. The unique and irreplaceable history of a set of pilgrim clothes—and not their utility-value—is what gives them meaning. In addition, support will be provided for the idea that things can become sacred through history, ritual and ceremony in the context of a community. This applies to pilgrim’s clothes; and it explains a commonplace reluctance to merely get rid of them as one would most things. The narrative of a pilgrim’s clothes comes to a fitting end, a ‘clothesure,’ with a ceremonious disposal rather than a more practical-minded jettison of trash. - Academic Paper30 April 2026
Impact of Mass Tourism on Corsican Religion: Between Spectacularisation and Commercialisation the Case of the Sartène Catenacciu
This study aims to question the impact of mass tourism on the religious expression of the Corsicans. In 2012, across France, 44% of cultural tourism had a spiritual and religious aspect, representing around 20 million travellers (Baziou, 2004:336). It is often the discovery of heritage, whether built or intangible, that leads people to engage in this form of ‘religious tourism’. Although arising from good intentions, this form of tourism is accompanied by a process of secularisation that alters the very object being sought. This is what we shall examine through a synchronic and diachronic study of the Catenacciu di Sartène, which appears to constitute a paradigmatic case. Indeed, this ritual has been directly and profoundly affected by the tourist phenomenon, giving rise to both a spectacularisation and a commercialisation of the religious rite. - Academic Paper1 January 2026
Modern Day Saints and the Production of a Contemporary Pilgrimage Site: Comparative Analysis of St. Pio of San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy and Sai Baba of Shirdi, India
Places valorised by saints have attracted pilgrimage for a long time as devotion to saints is a way to achieve both material wellbeing and spiritual growth. Yet, the cult following of modern-day saints in contemporary societies has become a topic for exploration only in recent years (Di Giovine, 2010; Shinde & Pinkney; 2013, Srinivas, 2008). A few excellent hagiographies discuss the material and non-material world created around charismatic modern-day saints with global followership (Waghorne, 2004; Weiss, 2005; Shepherd, 1986). Given the immense popularity of modern-day saints many questions arise- what kind of pilgrimage landscape is created around them? Are they created like those traditionally found in established religious faiths or do they herald new directions while producing newer spaces for pilgrimage practice? This central question is explored in this paper using a cross-culture comparative analysis of sites of two saints that are similar despite belonging to two different religious-cultural contexts: St. Pio of San Giovanni Rotondo in Italy (1887-1968) and Sai Baba of Shirdi in India (c.1880- 1918). There are several commonalities between these two modern-day saints: both were believed to be ‘living saints’ with healing powers; both became popular in a short span of time; both have wide networks of transnational following. The places where the saints found their calling, began to attract visitors, and from small unassuming villages transformed into popular pilgrim towns with a contemporary orientation. These places have a mix of attraction - tomb of the saint, mega shrine to accommodate large congregations, charitable hospital to serve the needy, museums, thus making them more multipurpose places. Moreover, devotion to the saint being the main reason, the paraphernalia of traditional religious rituals and religious functionaries is absent. Instead, lodging and boarding is provided by non-religious (and yet dedicated to the saint) actors and as such tends to be more in the form of hotels, restaurants, and other tour services. Given the rapid pace of development of tourism, there are several critiques about the intense commodification of souvenirs, contestations about heritage, and all things related to such saints (Di Giovine, 2012a; Shinde, 2022). Thus, this paper offers insights about the processes involved in the development of pilgrimage sites dedicated to modern-day saints that are becoming integral to contemporary religiosity.