Rethinking Archaeologies of Pilgrimage

At its core, pilgrimage is a relational phenomenon. Firsthand accounts of these sacred journeys reveal that humans, otherworldly beings, landscapes, objects, memories, and more move and assemble in various ways that often have profound historical effects. Certainly ancient pilgrimages and the convergences they instigated were equally efficacious. Most archaeologists, however, focus on identifying material traces of pilgrimage activities, and attempts to understand the role of pilgrimage in economics, politics, religion, and social life typically result in functional or structural explanations. Simply put, pilgrimage is conceived as a way to maintain social equilibrium or as part of an underlying social blueprint, and its relational underpinnings are unexplored.

The primary idea of this symposium is that the relationships a pilgrimage instigates are the source of the journey’s effectual power. Thus, the goal is to focus on how these connections occur and alter the social world. Participants are encouraged to engage with recent theories of phenomenology, animism, relationality, movement, and affect and use multiple lines of evidence to tackle these issues. Overall, the intent is to reinvigorate archaeological studies of pilgrimage using newer social theories.