Routledge Studies in Pilgrimage, Religious Travel and Tourism

Pilgrimage, defined here as people’s journeys to and from places of special significance as well as what they do at these places, has been a perennial activity in human history and remains very popular worldwide. Old pilgrimage routes can be observed from palaeolithic times across all religions and religious cultures, and many of these have been restored while new ones continue to be created; pilgrimage destinations – local, regional, national and international − attract increasing numbers of visitors’ places as well as media attention. Such developments are part of a global process where different forms of travel – physical movement such as labour and lifestyle migration, tourism of various forms, the cultural heritage industry – have become a major feature of the modern world. These developments involve relations between people and other-than-humans. They also involve the creation of art, buildings and other material constraints to sacralise the countryside, and have done so from the beginning.

This series, established in 2015, includes studies from global and cross-cultural perspectives of topics, such as:

• pilgrimage as journey and human practice at destinations  
• history of pilgrimage
• landscape and performance
• pilgrimage and travel writing;
• heritage and tourism
• gender and sexuality
• political economy of pilgrimage
• material culture
• relations between humans and other-than-humans
• ideological and violent struggles over religion and resistance to tourist intrusion
• inter-religious engagement and comparative pilgrimage
• pilgrimage to sites of suffering