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TOURISM, PILGRIMAGE, AND "THE SACRED" - EXPLORING BOUNDARIES,
RETHINKING IDENTITIES, CONTESTING DISCOURSES<br>
<br>
Call for papers for a session at the American Anthropological Association
Annual Meeting in San Francisco, CA (November 17-21, 2004)<br>
<br>
This session is a contribution to the general conference theme of this
year’s AAA meeting, “Magic, Science, and Religion”. It will focus on the
relationship between tourism, pilgrimage and ‘the sacred’.<br>
<br>
So far, the conceptual and empirical interplay between pilgrimage and
tourism has been explored in relation to ritualized practices of the
quest for the sacred. Some scholars see pilgrimage as a forerunner of
modern tourism and understand tourism to be a modern substitute for
religion. For others, contemporary mass tourism compares poorly to the
spiritual journey of the pilgrim. The various analytical arguments
concerning the complexities of tourism, pilgrimage, and the sacred
provide a useful background for thinking about these issues. At the same
time, they draw attention to the need to explore these links in new
directions.<br>
<br>
The renewed interest in religion within the emergent global culture,
economy, polity, and society gives the dynamics surrounding pilgrimage,
tourism, and the sacred new urgency. A sustained and continuous flow of
travel to holy sites and places of interest implies that tourism and
pilgrimage may be integral to major world religions and their cultural
contexts. How is this movement of people and the motivations that sustain
it shaped by the perceived risks associated with travel? How are notions
of what constitutes the sacred shaped by the larger global context? In
what ways are individual and group identities molded and contested
through these processes? How are the fluidities of tourist and pilgrim
identities and the notions of the sacred played out through framing,
performing, interpreting, and remembering places and people of these
sites?<br>
<br>
We invite submissions from all disciplines and fields of interest to
bring together current thinking about these and other related
issues.<br>
<br>
If interested in participating, please contact Noel B. Salazar
(<a href="mailto:nsalazar@sas.upenn.edu">nsalazar@sas.upenn.edu</a>) or
Vida Bajc (<a href="mailto:vbajc@ssc.upenn.edu">vbajc@ssc.upenn.edu</a>)
by February 29, 2004. <br>
Please submit your name, your affiliation, a title and abstract limited
to 250 words. <br>
<br>
The 103rd Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association
(AAA) will be held in San Francisco at the Hilton and Towers (November
17-21, 2004).<br>
More info:
<a href="http://www.aaanet.org/mtgs/04cfp.htm">http://www.aaanet.org/mtgs/04cfp.htm</a><br>
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