Original scientific paper
Onto emerging ground: Anticlimactic movement on the Camino de Santiago de Compostela
Kiyomi Doi
; Department of Cultural Anthropology, University of Tokyo, Japan
Abstract
Pilgrimage studies are frequently characterised as involving collective relationships, such as solidarity or contestation regarding discourses and attitudes, rather than travellers encountering "frivolous" things on the road. However, this paper argues that there are some similar performative actions in pilgrims' diverse walking practices on the road to Santiago de Compostela. It traces the manner in which walking movements constitute transformative forces that create a capacity for embodying a "different standpoint". This paper broadens the scope of pilgrimage studies to include not only human but also non-human aspects, such as the weather, traffic lights and the column at the Cathedral at Santiago de Compostela, that influence the pilgrims' journeys. Focusing more on materiality of body and place than on spirituality and thoughts in their heads, this theoretical perspective demonstrates that various encounters on the road are shaping today's Camino without the boundary of "ourselves" versus "others". Conforming to this perspective, three modes of a fractal-like deterritorialisation and reterritorialisation seen amongst pilgrims' various feelings are illustrated: going beyond to encompass something indeterminate, disciplined practices influenced by their transitive environments, and understandings of their experiences at the end of the journey.
Keywords
pilgrimage; body and place; forces and forms; deterritorialisation and reterritorialisation; materiality; walking; Spain
Hrčak ID:
74033
URI
Publication date:
3.11.2011.
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