Location
Monserrat
Start Date
25-6-2026 3:30 PM
End Date
25-6-2026 4:30 PM
Description
Pilgrimage is frequently understood through a Western Christian framework, with the Camino de Santiago functioning as an archetypal model. As Coleman (2021) observes, this has encouraged scholars to apply Eurocentric definitions of pilgrimage to diverse religious practices, often obscuring alternative forms and limiting scholarly interpretation. Conventionally, pilgrimage requires religious travelers to leave home in search of the sacred what Victor Turner describes as the spiritual “out there “typically by journeying to a holy site associated with relics, idols, or images. However, such parameters exclude practices in which sacred objects themselves travel, bringing the “out there” home to devotees. In these cases, veneration occurs within familiar spaces rather than through the uncertainty of physical travel. Moreover, traveling religious items can acquire political and geopolitical significance, prompting a reconceptualization of pilgrimage itself.
This paper advances the concept of decentering pilgrimage by critically examining the dominance of the Camino, or path, trope. While the Camino emphasizes journey over destination, it paradoxically still culminates at a fixed sacred center. In contrast, this study examines cases such as the Santo Niño de Atocha and Nuestra Señora de Zapaton, in which religious images themselves become the pilgrims. These examples raise a central question: can pilgrimage occur without physical travel by the devotee? We argue that it can. By foregrounding motivation—such as spiritual obligation, devotion, or purification rather than movement alone, this paper challenges what we term the “Camino Trap.” Recognizing traveling religious items as legitimate forms of pilgrimage allows for a more inclusive and theoretically robust understanding of pilgrimage across cultural and geopolitical contexts.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.
Included in
E1) Relics on the Move: Decentring Pilgrimage and the Mobility of Holy Objects in Diaspora Communities
Monserrat
Pilgrimage is frequently understood through a Western Christian framework, with the Camino de Santiago functioning as an archetypal model. As Coleman (2021) observes, this has encouraged scholars to apply Eurocentric definitions of pilgrimage to diverse religious practices, often obscuring alternative forms and limiting scholarly interpretation. Conventionally, pilgrimage requires religious travelers to leave home in search of the sacred what Victor Turner describes as the spiritual “out there “typically by journeying to a holy site associated with relics, idols, or images. However, such parameters exclude practices in which sacred objects themselves travel, bringing the “out there” home to devotees. In these cases, veneration occurs within familiar spaces rather than through the uncertainty of physical travel. Moreover, traveling religious items can acquire political and geopolitical significance, prompting a reconceptualization of pilgrimage itself.
This paper advances the concept of decentering pilgrimage by critically examining the dominance of the Camino, or path, trope. While the Camino emphasizes journey over destination, it paradoxically still culminates at a fixed sacred center. In contrast, this study examines cases such as the Santo Niño de Atocha and Nuestra Señora de Zapaton, in which religious images themselves become the pilgrims. These examples raise a central question: can pilgrimage occur without physical travel by the devotee? We argue that it can. By foregrounding motivation—such as spiritual obligation, devotion, or purification rather than movement alone, this paper challenges what we term the “Camino Trap.” Recognizing traveling religious items as legitimate forms of pilgrimage allows for a more inclusive and theoretically robust understanding of pilgrimage across cultural and geopolitical contexts.