PILNAR: Pilgrimage Narratives

Paul Post (Tilburg University, NL)

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Project Title & Acronym and AbstractTitle: Pilgrimage Narratives: Creating a Germ Corpus for Studying the Profile of the Modern PilgrimAcronym: PILNAR

Target Start Date: April 1. 2012Target End Date: April 2013Type: Demonstrator Project or Resource Curation Project: BothCall: Closed Call

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Some statistics

2009: 145,877 pilgrims2010: expectation: 300.000?

272,4962011: 183,502Top 7: Spain Germany

Italy USCanadaAustriathe Netherlands

Season: April-October peak: AugustAge: peak around 50 and 2885,945: men 59,932: women

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Some statistics

Bicycle: 24,892

Most Camino Francés

Motives: hardly serious research

‘religious’: 62,188‘religious and other’ (sic): 70,303‘non-religious’: 13,386

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Status Quaestionis

Emerging ritual

Contexts, appropriations?The profile of the modern pilgrim?

The perspective of ‘Fields of the Sacred”

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Sacred fields

I Religious field

‘the religious sacred’

collective, institutional, traditional

liturgy

church building as ritual podium

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Sacred fields

II. Healing field

very dominant

“To find salvation and healing....”

exorcism, prophylactic, apotropaic, salvation

banning evil, bringing salvation

baptism, marriage, death rites

pilgrimage, devotions, praise & worship

healing services

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Sacred fields

III. Memory/ remembrance culture

very dominant: death/d rituals, memorials

Holocaust WWII

Great War WWI

Cf. now dynamics in ritual performances in memorial culture

Death rites

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Sacred fields

IV. ‘Culture’: the arts

art, theatre, museum, history, heritage

monuments.....

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Sacred fields

V. Leisure culture > ‘re-creation’

nature, landscape, parks, events, festivals,

sport, tourism

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Sacred fields:

I. religionIII. memorial culture

IV. ‘culture’: art, history,museum, theatre, heritage culture

II. healing

V. leisure culture

nature, sport, tourism

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Sacred fields

analytical perspectives of interaction:

1. Tensions, contestations, discontinuity

2. Ritual references, ritual transfer

3. Overlap, continuity

4. Cultural processes, appropriations

5. Mapping out identities

6. Success and failure

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Sacred fields: mapping out identities of the modern pilgrim

I. religionIII. memorial culture

IV. ‘culture’: art, history,museum, theatre, heritage culture

II. healing

camino Success explained??

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And: trace cultural/societal processesCastells: Network society

Enormous tempo of changesDeterritorialisationVirtualisation and dematerialisation

of info, identities, communitiesHorizontalisationFragmentisation

radical a-centric

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‘FLOW’ >

I. religion III. memorial culture

IV. Art & culture

II. healing

V. leisure culture

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Short outline of the project

Research perspective: religious & ritual dynamics

Pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela as casus

‘the modern pilgrim’

Inductive approach: performances, ritual main entrance

Ritual narratives

Pilgrimage narratives unique source

Heuristic instrument: sacred fields

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Short outline of the project

The germ corpus TSH + MI + CLARIN.nl

Dutch narratives by Santiago pilgrims after 2000

Sources:

-De Jacobsstaf 1986ss

-De Pelgrim

-Ultreia

-accounts and blogs via website Genootschap

-www.pelgrimsverhalen.nl

-call 2012

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Short outline of the project

The germ corpus

Dutch narratives by Santiago pilgrims after 2000

accessible database, corresponding to long-term preservation

analysis on two levels:

a. metadata extraction techniques

b. content search engine [word clouds]

here: the instrument of fields of the sacred!

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Short outline of the project

Perspectives a. Ritual, religious, pilgrimage studies

-international

-historical

-types of pilgrimage

-places

-travel accounts in general

and last but not least

-religious comparative:

Islam!

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Short outline of the project

Perspectives b. Culture studies

-shifts in accounts > blogs, twitter

-changes in self presentation?

- life narratives

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