Pilgrimage: Communitas and contestation, unity and difference - An introduction

Abstract

In this introduction to Tourism's special issue, 'Pilgrimage: Communitas and Contestation, Unity and Diff erence,' guest editor Michael A. Di Giovine explores the intellectual history of the anthropological theory of communitas — which Victor Turner has argued is a foundational element of pilgrimage — and its broader application to tourism research. Communitas denotes a spontaneous sensation of mutual communication and unity that arises among pilgrims, which transcends the quotidian markers of social structure, such as class, status, education, employment, or political affi liations. While the theory has proven to be foundational in the social scientifi c study of pilgrimage and, later, (secular) tourism, it was also met with criticism, particularly in John Eade and Michael Sallnow's volume, Contesting the Sacred. Arguing that the analytical discrepancy between those who fi nd communitas in pilgrimage and those who fi nd contestation is predominantly based on one's view of the social structure of pilgrimage/tourism itself, the author posits an alternative model, the fi eld of touristic production. In addition to referencing this issue's interdisciplinary papers, the author illustrates his model of pilgrimage through recourse to his ethnographic fi eldwork at the Italian shrine of contemporary Catholic saint and stigmatic, Padre Pio of Pietrelcina.