What Makes a Field? Stepping from Pilgrimage to Pilgrimage Studies

Abstract

How do we decide what the next steps will be in the study of pilgrimage? Answering this question is not just a matter of prediction; it is also about deciding what the field of Pilgrimage Studies is for, and who its audiences might be. Writing as an anthropologist, I examine a number of perspectives and actions that I see as key to helping our field to move forward. These involve 1) understanding pilgrimage’s capacity to encompass and inflect wider social trends; 2) taking a critical view of the analytical metaphors that we have used in describing pilgrimage, and developing some new ones; 3) understanding how Pilgrimage Studies might interact with other fields, including those that go beyond religion; 4) speculating that pilgrimage might be considered a form of ethical, self-consciously directed, orientation toward action.