Pilgrimage Respecified: Falklands War Veterans’ Accounts of their Returns to the Falkland Islands

Abstract

In 2002 the South Atlantic Medal Association organized its first ‘pilgrimage’ to the Falkland Islands. Pilgrimages to the islands have since become a regular occurrence. Battlefield ‘pilgrimages’ are seen not only as a ritual of remembrance of the dead, but as a cathartic act of personal and bonded-group self-affirmation, understood by many as an essential element of the psychological healing process after war. Yet public and media representations are dominated by images of parades, memorials and wreath laying and largely exclude the voices of the veterans and the bereaved. Using memoirs, oral testimonies, autoethnography, veterans’ associations newsletters and social media sites as sources, this article respecifies the phenomenon of the ‘pilgrimage’, stressing the unique adequacy of members' practices amonst themselves as constitutive of the pilgrimage experience. The paper questions the future of the Falklands pilgrimage cultural practices as veterans of this conflict age, and the meaning and location of sites of pilgrimage change.