ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the intersection of different physical movements, while adding social movement to the analysis. The latter is critical to the discussion, because people unite in their journey to Mary to fight against social inequality, oppression, violence or occupying forces. The author examines the social movement of female African pilgrims by focusing on who is mobilized when their journey is being organized, and what gender issues are raised throughout the pilgrimage. Few studies have been written about these intersecting journeys, most of them concerning tourism and pilgrimage or Muslim migrants on pilgrimage. Studies, such as Eade in this chapter, that link migrant travels and pilgrimages to European Marian shrines are few, while the pilgrimages of African migrants in Europe are overlooked altogether. With the Catholic Church's official recognition of these apparitions in 1862, the village quickly developed into one of the best-known Marian pilgrimage sites in the Christian world.
