Contesting the sacred : the anthropology of Christian pilgrimage
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Contesting the sacred : the anthropology of Christian pilgrimage
University of Illinois Press, c2000
- : pbk
Available at 8 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
Originally published: London ; New York : Routledge, 1991. With new introd
Includes bibliographical references and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Whether a pilgrimage crystallizes around a place, a visionary individual, or a text, it brings widely diverse individuals and their beliefs, doctrines, and expectations into contact with each other. One person's holy site is another person's profit center - and this mingling of the sacred and the profane is what makes pilgrimages and their destinations complex sites of exchange and conflict. Focusing on Christian pilgrimage to locales as far flung as Lourdes, Italy, Jerusalem, Sri Lanka, and Peru, this important collection assesses the qualities and power of pilgrimage shrines as sites for accommodating various, often competing, meanings and practices, both among pilgrims and between shrine custodians and devotees.Contributors discuss the highly organized shrine at Lourdes and also the shrine at San Giovanni Rotondo in Sangiovannesi, Italy, where conflicting interests among townspeople and pilgrims have crystallized around the life and the remains, respectively, of a holy man Padre Pio.
Another contributor looks at the competing images of Jerusalem among pilgrims of various Christian faiths - Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Christian Zionist - who see the holy land as, respectively, the repository of treasured icons, the itinerary of Christ's recorded life, and a sacred site in itself.Others discuss the unique attributes of shrines outside the Christian heartland: in Sri Lanka, where Christianity as a minority religion is enclaved within the dominant Sinhalese Buddhist culture; and in Peru, where Catholic observances are interwoven with the practices of local indigenous cults. There is a major advance in understanding the complexity of pilgrimage, Contesting the Sacred that provides valuable insight into the process of exchange between human beings and the divine that gives pilgrimage its central rationale. John Eade's new introduction places the book's theoretical frame in the context of recent thinking and writing on pilgrimage and considers the impact of globalization and tourism on pilgrimage cults and sites.
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