Location
Palermo
Start Date
26-6-2025 11:30 AM
End Date
26-6-2025 1:00 PM
Description
In Corsica, mountain pilgrimages serve as a key vector for the transmission of the sacred and a marker of collective identity. Rooted in popular religiosity, these practices intertwine ritual performance, oral tradition, and spatiality, shaping a unique relationship between faith and territory. The study of these pilgrimages offers a means to examine the processes of sacralization of mountain spaces and their role in the transmission of religious practices, as well as the question of their heritage status.
This study focuses on three mountain pilgrimages in Corsica: Sant'Alesiu di Sermanu, Sant'Alesiu d'Alisgiani, and San Bertuli d’Orezza. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, it provides an anthropological and social analysis of these pilgrimages, with a particular focus on their inscription within the mountainous landscape and their connection to popular religious expressions. These pilgrimages rely on intergenerational transmission, sustained by oral tradition, collective memory, and ritual structuring, reinforcing the embeddedness of the sacred within a landscape perceived as a space of mediation between the divine and the community. These rituals are built upon devotional gestures, votive practices, and local beliefs, which belong to a set of symbolic gestures and ritualized acts, reflecting a shared symbolic system. Through these practices, the sacralization of mountain spaces ensures the continuity of pilgrimage traditions, while also shaping a specific approach to religious experience that transcends institutional frameworks. The mountain thus becomes both a symbolic and material anchor for the sacred, where religious meanings are continuously redefined in interaction with the landscape.
This study highlights how the sacralization of mountain landscapes contributes to the resilience of these pilgrimages, while shaping a distinct approach to the sacred, oscillating between community attachment and the reconfiguration of religious meaning. However, the lack of formal heritage recognition raises questions about their long-term transmission: do these pilgrimages rely exclusively on local communities and ritual filiation, or are they subject to transformations influenced by evolving societal and religious contexts? By examining these three case studies, this paper explores how these practices navigate between preservation and adaptation, questioning how the sacralization of mountain spaces ensures the continuity of pilgrimages while integrating new dynamics.
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DOI
https://doi.org/10.21427/p3z0-w423
Included in
C3) From Ritual to Heritage: Mountain Pilgrimages and The Transmission of Practices in Corsica
Palermo
In Corsica, mountain pilgrimages serve as a key vector for the transmission of the sacred and a marker of collective identity. Rooted in popular religiosity, these practices intertwine ritual performance, oral tradition, and spatiality, shaping a unique relationship between faith and territory. The study of these pilgrimages offers a means to examine the processes of sacralization of mountain spaces and their role in the transmission of religious practices, as well as the question of their heritage status.
This study focuses on three mountain pilgrimages in Corsica: Sant'Alesiu di Sermanu, Sant'Alesiu d'Alisgiani, and San Bertuli d’Orezza. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, it provides an anthropological and social analysis of these pilgrimages, with a particular focus on their inscription within the mountainous landscape and their connection to popular religious expressions. These pilgrimages rely on intergenerational transmission, sustained by oral tradition, collective memory, and ritual structuring, reinforcing the embeddedness of the sacred within a landscape perceived as a space of mediation between the divine and the community. These rituals are built upon devotional gestures, votive practices, and local beliefs, which belong to a set of symbolic gestures and ritualized acts, reflecting a shared symbolic system. Through these practices, the sacralization of mountain spaces ensures the continuity of pilgrimage traditions, while also shaping a specific approach to religious experience that transcends institutional frameworks. The mountain thus becomes both a symbolic and material anchor for the sacred, where religious meanings are continuously redefined in interaction with the landscape.
This study highlights how the sacralization of mountain landscapes contributes to the resilience of these pilgrimages, while shaping a distinct approach to the sacred, oscillating between community attachment and the reconfiguration of religious meaning. However, the lack of formal heritage recognition raises questions about their long-term transmission: do these pilgrimages rely exclusively on local communities and ritual filiation, or are they subject to transformations influenced by evolving societal and religious contexts? By examining these three case studies, this paper explores how these practices navigate between preservation and adaptation, questioning how the sacralization of mountain spaces ensures the continuity of pilgrimages while integrating new dynamics.