Place and Pilgrimage

These notes are framed like an essay to answer the question 'how do places become sacred? The structure:
- personally and ethnographically led answer
- sacred/profane dichotomy
- wisdom sits in places: how one learns from places; in different settings different ideas occur
- the case of tourism, the sacred journey
- the political dimension: tourist vs. pilgrim
- ethnographic example: El Rocio, Andalusia
- ultimate tourism; possible future research

Sacred places include
- locations with sentimental value - where you were most experimental or emotional
- home - where you were born, where you grew up, where you've spent most of your life, where your family live
- a palce in nature - beach, field, hills, river bank
- particular city, lane, café

Such places are constantly remembered and used as a point of reference as they are timeless and give perspective to situations.

Waikiki Beach, Hawaii
- supposedly the most famous beach in the world
- there are no coconuts on their coconut trees because they have all been emasculated to keep beach visitors safe
- this is symbolic of the separation/change of the beach from Hawaiian traditional life before mass tourism
- the beach used to be a place of recreation for the Hawaiian royalty and where fisherman would leave in their boats

How should a beach best be understood or appreciated (as space or place, like an ethnographic study)?
- historically, geographically, geologically.. in relation to other beaches
- virtually as an aesthetic experience distanecd from emotional responces
- pragmatically as an area to collect food, shelter materials or as a tourist destination
- politically: are locals allowed full access or has land be taken and made private property?
- phenomenologically - how is it experienced physically/bodily?
- experience as the instigator of knowledge?
- in terms of its particular relationship with certain people

Basso's study on the Apache in Arizona
- people are never alone in places because they carry the knowledge of other people with them
- "when places are actively sensed, the physical landscape becomes wedded to the landscape of the mind, to the roving imagination, and where the mind may lead is anybody's guess" p.55
- Apache strongly associate land with a sense of themselves for the land stores wisdom
- story of 'old man owl': Basso overhears a conversation between t3 cattle herders and Talbot Paxton (who's been on a binge for the past three weeks) that confuses him
"So! You've returned from Trail Goes Down Between Two Hills!"
"So! You've smelled enough burning piss!"
Talbot replies, "For a while I couldn't see."
- eventually Basso finds out the story of Old Man Owl who runs up and down between two hills fruitlessly trying to burn down trees while the fires a re put out by a woman peeing from above, which he thinks is rain because he cannot see her
- there are many stories scattered about the landscape involving ancestors, past relatives and their activities

Tourism vs Pilgrimage
- conventional understanding: superficiality vs profundity (insight)

Tourism: The Sacred Journey, Graburn as key theorist, theoretical inspirations:
- Durkheim (1912): notion of the sacred-nonordinary experience
- Leach (1961): sacred-profane alternations characteristic of important periods of social life
- Mauss (1898): alternation between sacred and profane is key to understanding rituals of sacralisation (leaving the ordinary) that elevates participants. Marvellous things happen.

Tourism and Time
- tourism as the 'modern equivalent for secular societies to the annual and lifelong sequences of festivals for more traidional God-fearing societies' (Graburn 1989: 25)
- contrast between ordinary/compulsory state at home vs nonordinary/voluntary away from

Criticisms of The Sacred Journey
- is the idea of sacred being contested?
- is there something missing from our experience as either tourists or travellers?
- or the way we create an identity being connected to a place through being 'travellers'?
- are there no political issues?
- status of tourist and pilgrim depends on where you stand

Ethnographic case example of how pilgrims and tourists interact in the same place
- El Rocio - Andalusian pilgrimage in Spain (according to Crain)
- cult to the Virgin Mary, 13th century
- 78 brotherhoods converge on El Rocio, 7-8 days
- great festivities at the shrine: singing, dancing, eating, meeting old friends
- climax: appearance of the Virgin idol from the shrine
- great number of tourist spectators, pilgrims and film crews
- exotic Spain: popular for growing middle class (signifier of distinction) and transnational interest foreign traditions

How to keep the 'sacredness' under the threat of consumer capitalism
- 'outsiders' are labelled 'yupeez', even those who may be returnees from overseas and urbanites with properties in villages
- relates to label of 'yuppies' in America on Young Urban Professionals that were mostly hedonistic and materialistic because they wanted to show off their status/wealth
- emphasis on the pilgrimage as a religious ritual and should not be an acitivity where tourists are invited to spectate or take part
- people that do no participate in the proper way get teased
- focus is on the spiritual experience, and locals' connection with the land/region

Place, Pilgrimage and Power (Mines)
- tourism and pilgrimage are privileges often denied to many
- do we account for those that have no place at all or very little sense of belonging? e.g. homeless, orphans, seniors in retirement/nursing homes
-how do people fight to belong and have a claim on a place?

Ultimate and imaginary tourism
- other areas of possible: space travel, ultimate tourism (e.g. climbing great mountains)
- utopic imaginary worlds: LAN computer games, Second Life