ABSTRACT
This collection draws on the Mobilities approach to look afresh at notions of the sacred where they intersect with people, objects and other things on the move. Consideration of a wide range of spiritual meanings and practices also sheds light on the motivations and experiences associated with particular mobilities. Drawing on rich, situated case studies, this multi-disciplinary collection discusses what mobility in the social sciences, arts and humanities can tell us about movements and journeys prompted by religious, more broadly ’spiritual’ and 'secular-sacred' practices and priorities. Problematizing the fixity of sacred places and times as territorially and temporally bounded entities that exist in opposition to ’profane’ everyday life, this collection looks at the intersection between the embodied-emotional-spiritual experience of places, travel, belief-practices and communities. It is this geographically-informed perspective on the interleaving of religious/ spiritual/ secular notions of the sacred with the material and more-than-representational attributes of associated mobilities and related practices which constitutes this volume’s original contribution to the field.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
section Section I|76 pages
The Sacred-secular and the Secular-sacred
chapter Chapter 2|22 pages
Being Together at the Magh Mela: The Social Psychology of Crowds and Collectivity
chapter Chapter 5|22 pages
‘At Least Once in a Lifetime’: Sports Pilgrimage and Constructions of the TT Races as ‘Sacred’ Journey
section Section II|52 pages
Tracing Historical Footprints
section Section III|54 pages
Sacred Journeys to Home, Family and Nation
chapter Chapter 9|18 pages
Sacred Rootedness – Settling into Mobility in the Nineteenth Century American West
section Section IV|12 pages
Afterword