After learning so much about the Camino De Santiago in class, I wanted to find some outside readings that shed more light on this journey. In January 2014, Michael Murray published an article called The Cultural Heritage of Pilgrim Itineraries: The Camino De Santiago to develop the pilgrimage phenomenon and heritage in sacred place. I was drawn to this specific article because he uses a reading from our class, Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture by Edith Turner, to support his claims. Murray says, "Pilgrimage involves travel to a sacred site located at some distance from the pilgrim's place of residence, requires giving-up temporarily the routines of ordinary life, and places emphasis on salvation and release from the evils and afflictions from the world" (p. 5). Throughout the course during this semester, we have learned that we do not choose our sacred place but instead our sacred place chooses us. This is important to remember while one "travels to a sacred site" as mentioned by Murray. A sacred site becomes sacred once we have undergone spiritual growth at a once ordinary place that becomes extraordinary. Murray takes his time to explain the significance of pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago and mentions its tourist attractions. He says, "Firstly, itineraries such as the Camino de Santiago demonstrate their attraction for the development of route-based tourism where the key driver is the representation and consumption of cultural heritage" (p. 58). This demonstrates that tourism may be a reason people visit the Camino but isn't necessarily the reason they stay. After reading Murray's overview of the Camino de Santiago, I have a better understanding of pilgrimage, cultural heritage, and route-based tourism.
Murray, Michael. (2014). The Cultural Heritage of Pilgrim Itineraries: The Camino de Santiago. Institute of Spacial and Environmental Planning: School of Planning, Architecture, and Civil Engineering, Queen's University Belfast. Retrieved from: http://www.qub.ac.uk/researchcentres/TheInstituteofSpatialandEnvironmentalPlanning/Impact/WorkingPapers/FileStore/Filetoupload,432512,en.pdf
No comments:
Post a Comment