To become a Pilgrim: Pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela as a Construction of the Pilgrim Body
Keywords:
pilgrimage, Santiago de Compostela, pilgrim body, communitas, autoethnographyAbstract
This work focuses on how contemporary pilgrims walking to Santiago de Compostela understand their experience. Through the analysis of interviews with nine pilgrims and an auto-ethnographic diary with a strong dose of reflexivity I want to show that pilgrimage can be understood as a process of constructing a pilgrim body. “To become a pilgrim” is achieved through six different strategies, which are walking, socialising, solitude, separation (from everyday life), asceticism, and faith. This experience results in a form of a technique of the body (Mauss 1968) which can be learnt and used in everyday life after the pilgrimage ends. Pilgrim body is a complex skill, consisting of physical, mental, spiritual and social dimensions, each describing a different aspect of the pilgrimage itself, all embodied in the physical body of a pilgrim. Through such an approach I want to show that we might understand pilgrimage as a form of physical experience with transcendental overlap, focused mainly on individual progress, but constructed together in friendly communitas of pilgrims, described by Victor Turner in his classic study (Turner 1969). Usage of these benefits gained from pilgrimage and the life of Pilgrim body in everyday life is analysed as well.
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