Towards a Semiotics of Pilgrimage

Sinceits founding by Jacques Waardenburg in 1971, Religion and Reason has been a leading forum for contributions on theories, theoretical issues and agendas related to the phenomenon and the study of religion. Topics include (among others) category formation, comparison, ethnophilosophy, hermeneutics, methodology, myth, phenomenology, philosophy of science, scientific atheism, structuralism, and theories of religion. From time to time the series publishes volumes that map the state of the art and the history of the discipline.

Pilgrimage can be better understood as a particular kind of semiotic activity, that is, as a process of production, transmission, and reception of meaning through languages, texts, and discourses. Research on the topic of pilgrimage seems stalled nowadays between older interpretations concerning the liminoid and communitas-like character of this phenomenon, explorations of cultic sites conceived as empty vessels for competing discourses, and the assimilation of pilgrimage into the problem of tourism and motion. This book seeks to overcome the current lack of convincing theorization by proposing a new understanding of this cultural practice, through the methodological lens of contemporary continental semiotics. Instead of trying to wedge this complex practice into a static and exclusive definition, the author interrogates the conditions of possibility of this phenomenon. The question What is pilgrimage? thus becomes When is pilgrimage? Through historical and ethnographic examples as well as case studies conducted in Japan, pilgrimage emerges as a transformative process involving subjects in search of identity. This process strategically employs ritual space, narration, and memory through the performative use of body and experience.

Auteur

Tatsuma Padoan, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, United Kingdom.