Reframing Pilgrimage Cultures in Motion

Reframing Pilgrimage: Cultures in Motion by Simon Coleman and John Ead is a book that challenges the notion that sacred travel is a form of 21st century, modern, cultural mobility. The authors attempt to analyze the meanings behind Christian, Hindu, Mormon, Sufi, and Islamic pilgrimage through interpretation of traditions including pilgrimage in secular contexts. In doing so, they generate a new theory of pilgrimage and define it as a form of voluntary displacement. The newly formed meaning of voluntary displacement assists in establishing cultural meaning in an otherwise fast pace world.

Pilgrimage works on a global and individual economic scale and is recognized as a highly politically and creatively charged force intrinsically encircled in cultural and economic systems. Many works have stated how pilgrimage revolves around culture and movement and in itself represents an aspect of culture that otherwise would go unnoticed if it did not religious connotations attached to it. Chapters like: "The pilgrim church in Vienna: mobile memories at the 1912 International Eucharistic Congress" in Pilgrimage in the Age of Globalisation Constructions of the Sacred and Secular in Late Modernity and the books: Intersecting Journeys the Anthropology of Pilgrimage and Tourism and Travel and Modernist Literature Sacred and Ethical Journeys all offer further exploration of the phenomenon of pilgrimage and what its actions leave behind. Pilgrimage after all, is a means of finding religious connection and identity for so many out there around the world.

The authors discuss in detail what pilgrimage is. To them, pilgrimage is a purposeful travel. It is something that cannot be forced into a Procrustean category of any one particular devising. They want the reader to view examples of this phenomenon from one perspective, a moving frame. This moving frame is their way of encompassing and encapsulating pilgrimage. They offer a dissection of the meaning behind pilgrimage from several religious views in order to better understand the various connotations and context behind pilgrimage. Viewing it from one view, one religion, like the Turners (1978) and Eade and Sallnow (1991 B) with Christianity restricts observation to one representation. As they state: "…we decided not to restrict ourselves to any particular region or religion. Our aim is more to explore the interfaces between forms and representations of mobility within diverse cultural and religious contexts" (Coleman and Eade 2004, p. 18).

In relation to other authors, they note how the authors they chose to reference in their book observe movement within movement, or meta-movement: "the combination of mobility itself with a degree of reflexivity as to its meaning, form and function" (Coleman and Eade 2004, p. 18). They use concepts such as culture shock to change of conscious in relation to the change of perception by the person on pilgrimage. Hyndman-Rizk states in the chapter, "The pilgrim church in Vienna: mobile memories at the 1912 International Eucharistic Congress" in Pilgrimage in the Age of Globalisation Constructions of the Sacred and Secular in Late Modernity, "like the physical journey, has its own topography and ecology of hardship, which is central to the transformative potential of pilgrimage to bring about "self-knowledge (Hyndman-Rizk, 2012, p.39). Coleman and Eade (2004), provide comparative emphasis on similar theories of sacred travel. They identify three forms of motion essential to pilgrimage: embodied, imagined and metaphorical (Coleman and Eade 2004, p. 3).

Coleman and Eade organize their arguments on their prepared notions of pilgrimage through the use of other writers' works and constructs. They utilize the previous perceived meaning and then propose their own to counteract it or support it. For instance on page 100, the state, "Clifford (1997:3) claims that within the anthropological theory 'roots always precede routes' but suggests that movement is just as much involved in human location as what he terms 'stasis'" (Coleman and Eade 2004, p. 100). The example supports their movement concept through the reinforcing comment of another writer.

Reframing Pilgrimage: Cultures in Motion, shifts the study of pilgrimage towards the study and observance of movement. This perspective removes the traditional anthropological focus on process and ritual and instead utilizes mobility by transforming it into social science. This work runs similarly to the work of another book: Intersecting Journeys the Anthropology of Pilgrimage and Tourism. The authors of this book discuss theoretical insights of postmodern theory application in regards to the study of religious pilgrims following a contemporary period. They state: "The religious significance, deep histories, and routinized itineraries of most pilgrimages have meant that, to a greater degree than tourists, pilgrims have been self-conscious about the purpose of their journeys to pilgrimage shrines, often being guided by printed guide-books, oral narratives, and a plethora of cultural signs displayed by previous pilgrims" (Badone and Roseman, 2004, p 11). For pilgrimage to become a major focus for anthropological analysis, it had to have developed key concepts of communities, structure and anti-structure as essential characteristics of pilgrimage.

The shift from anthropological to political and historical contexts allow for further development of other concepts such as the role of gender and its meaning within pilgrimage. Eventually the movement of conceptualization began to take focus on tourism and travel as part of modern secularization of modern pilgrimage as discussed in and Travel and Modernist Literature Sacred and Ethical Journeys. Just like Coleman and Ead discuss their perspectives on modern pilgrimage, similarly does Peat with his definition of the modernist pilgrimage as a "cross-cultural flow of people and ideas around the world rather than as a journey from one fixed point to another," (Peat, 2011, p. 17). Peat examines the modern writer's engagement with several ethical issues through the journey and travel of the pilgrimage.

Eventually from here other writer formed spiritual tourism concepts and that became an extension of this field. The framework of pilgrimage continues to expand encompassing all kind of ideas and context. Overall, books like Reframing Pilgrimage: Cultures in Motion, illustrate in a broad and also focused way how the framework has expanded and continues to expand. Its contribution to this ever-growing framework is the concept of movement and how this ties into broader things like purpose, history, society and politics.