Location
Monserrat
Start Date
25-6-2026 11:30 AM
End Date
25-6-2026 1:00 PM
Description
How pilgrimage routes shape cultural heritage practices, place attachment, and the risk of places becoming “non-places” (Augé, 2008).
This presentation contrasts two models of pilgrimage route development. Institutionalized, top-down pilgrimage routes, often embedded in tourism and heritage policies, tend to prioritize economic growth and commercialization. Prominent pilgrimage destinations such as Lourdes (Kaufman, 2005) exemplify how top-down management can transform sacred spaces into functional “non-places” (Augé, 2008), privileging consumption and large-scale flows. This raises questions about whether pilgrimage can retain spiritual meaningfulness under increasingly market-driven logics.
In contrast, community-driven, bottom-up pilgrimage routes provide an alternative model, where social and moral commitments, rather than market imperatives, shape the experience of place. Drawing on ethnographic material from the „Camino Lituano “pilgrimage route, this presentation identifies locally experienced pride as a key mechanism linking pilgrimage mobility, place attachment, and cultural heritage practices. Emerging in response to pilgrims’ outsider gaze (Urry, 2002) and unfolding across emotional, cognitive, and practical dimensions (Altman & Low, 1992), this form of pride motivates residents to care for and develop local cultural heritage. These practices strengthen attachment to place, enable communities to address practical challenges such as route marking and infrastructure maintenance, and help embed route development in moral and social commitments rather than market-driven heritage commodification. Finally, by fostering forms of slow and attentive pilgrimage, such routes help sustain pilgrimage as a spiritually meaningful practice rather than a commodified form of mobility.
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Included in
D4) From ‘non-places’ to Meaningful Places: Lourdes and Camino Lituano Cases
Monserrat
How pilgrimage routes shape cultural heritage practices, place attachment, and the risk of places becoming “non-places” (Augé, 2008).
This presentation contrasts two models of pilgrimage route development. Institutionalized, top-down pilgrimage routes, often embedded in tourism and heritage policies, tend to prioritize economic growth and commercialization. Prominent pilgrimage destinations such as Lourdes (Kaufman, 2005) exemplify how top-down management can transform sacred spaces into functional “non-places” (Augé, 2008), privileging consumption and large-scale flows. This raises questions about whether pilgrimage can retain spiritual meaningfulness under increasingly market-driven logics.
In contrast, community-driven, bottom-up pilgrimage routes provide an alternative model, where social and moral commitments, rather than market imperatives, shape the experience of place. Drawing on ethnographic material from the „Camino Lituano “pilgrimage route, this presentation identifies locally experienced pride as a key mechanism linking pilgrimage mobility, place attachment, and cultural heritage practices. Emerging in response to pilgrims’ outsider gaze (Urry, 2002) and unfolding across emotional, cognitive, and practical dimensions (Altman & Low, 1992), this form of pride motivates residents to care for and develop local cultural heritage. These practices strengthen attachment to place, enable communities to address practical challenges such as route marking and infrastructure maintenance, and help embed route development in moral and social commitments rather than market-driven heritage commodification. Finally, by fostering forms of slow and attentive pilgrimage, such routes help sustain pilgrimage as a spiritually meaningful practice rather than a commodified form of mobility.