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Tourism and Religion

Introduction
Philippe Bachimon et Hervé Thery
Traduction de Nelson Graburn
Cet article est une traduction de :
Tourisme et religion [fr]
Autre(s) traduction(s) de cet article :
Turismo y religión [es]
Turisme i religió [ca]
Turismo e religião [pt]
Turismo e religione [it]
Tourismus und Religion [de]

Texte intégral

1Religion and leisure are two social practices and movements that have become particularly important in the twenty-first century, The relationship between them is not univocal, nor even unambiguous, though after Nietzsche (for whom "God was dead") one might consider that leisure, as an expression of materialism, might either prevail religion, or erase it, invalidating it a relic obscure times from a bygone past. Quite the opposite seems to be happening.

2First, we are witnessing a remarkable re-emergence of religion in the 21st century, after a 20th century which was marked by the secularization of society (republican secularism, communist and fascist ideologies ...), reminiscent of the 19th century with its "missions" of reconquest, internal and colonial, of a "Christianity" blunted by the Revolution, as in the 15th and 16th centuries, when the Reconquista (of the Iberian Peninsula) was followed by the Conquista of the Americas which became culturally Latin.

3However, the 21st century return to the religious dimension is taking a form very different from what it may have been at peak times such as the Crusades, the Inquisition or the Jihad. In post-modernity (Jameson, 2007) where everything can take on a value (primarily that of a commodity), religions, even monotheisms, include a dimension which clearly brings them closer to the types of consumerism of which the dominant form of tourism, is one of its main aspects.

4The relationship between tourism and religion discussed in this issue of Via is particularly complex and takes several hybrid forms, which means that it should not be examined from a binary perspective. These hybrid forms illuminate the borders, thought to be introductory (but are they always primary when pilgrimage is considered). The borders between these two phenomena are blurred even though they each ultimately abandon their specific identities. We propose to defer this question by examining what religion borrows from tourism and vice versa in order to understand how their mutual hybridizations confuse them, or even agitate them.

The Touristification of Religion

5In addition, there are religious practices that are akin to tourism if we take, for example, the definition given by INSEE [The National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies, France]. For this institute, tourism: “includes the activities carried out by people during their travels and stays in places located outside their usual environment for a consecutive period which does not exceed one year, for leisure or business purposes, and other reasons unrelated to the exercise of a remunerated activity in the place visited”.

6First of all, religious buildings such as cathedrals, monasteries or chapels, synagogues, mosques, Protestant, Buddhist or other temples, whether they are sacred or desecrated, are objects of curiosity and visits which undoubtedly fall into the category of cultural tourism. This immediately raises the issue, for example, of what heritage should be preserved and whether it should be opened (or not) to the non-practicing public as well as the question of paying for visits to religious buildings. But religious events such as holidays (Christmas, Eid, etc.) and pilgrimages (those to Lourdes, Mecca, Qom, etc.) show a strong tendency to take on all the attributes of tourism and leisure. One could cite the Christmas markets which have spread to all the major cities of Europe. But places of pilgrimage, with their "temple merchants" as in Lourdes and their restaurants, their terraces, their luxury hotels, their hammams, like Mecca, have become "religious stations" having all the attributes of other touristic stations, though they do not have that status.

7Of course, pilgrimages have always needed special logistics to transport, house and feed the faithful, but their recent massification, has caused a change of scale. Mecca, Lourdes, and Fatima receive millions of visitors every year. But it can reach tens of millions in other places. Every twelve years the Purna Kumbh Mela, or great Kumbh Mela, takes place in Prayag (India). In 2001, 70 million people moved along the banks of the Ganges in three weeks, 40 million of them in a single day. The record in this matter undoubtedly belongs to the Maha Kumbh Mela, which is held every 144 years, after twelve Purna Kumbh Mela. The last one took place in 2013 and hosted over 100 million people. Admittedly, the “clienteles” of these immense displacements of populations are not as uniform as their ritualistic attire suggests. But if these pilgrimages are massively popular, and in Hinduism it is obvious, they also continue to go upmarket to offer the most well-off believers, who have become VIPs, conditions of extraordinary comfort. Here we can see the appearance of a tourist gradient that goes from mass popular tourism (they sleep outside or in tents) to elitist luxury tourism, even very upscale (housed in palaces).

Religious opposition to tourism

8While for religious people, tourism can pervert the behavior of the faithful, this does not prevent close encounters, sometimes very innovative, from developing at the instigation of religious.

9Opposition to tourism seems to be a long-held mantra. Many places of prayer are closed to "layman" visitors in order to protect believers from invasive curiosity that could disrupt their meditation and the sacredness of the place. Any contact with tourists, even outside the walls, can be the subject of disapproving sermons. This has been the case since the end of the 19th century in Polynesia, where missionaries and the local pastors who succeeded them often denounce tourists as disbelievers bringing only profit and sexually transmitted diseases. Coupeurs de route [« highway executioners »], appointed by jihadist groups, kidnap tourists traveling in the Sahel or the Middle East. Messianic movements can do the same in the Andes. Although these kidnappings sometimes give rise to summary executions, most often they consist of hostage-taking, a form of commodification of a religious conviction, the release of hostages on payment of a ransom which fuels the religious movement. For these regions, which were often on the margins of tourism, this results in dangers which prevent tourism development as long as they lasts.

10This is dramatic and highly publicized because the safety of travelers is "sacred" for the countries concerned. But it is also because, beyond the archaic situation, extremist religious movements (sometimes sectarian) propose to attack tourism as a device of a Western soft power which would would result in the desecration of traditional societies. Tourism is seen as a form of neocolonialism, which is attempting to import its commercial and social values in order to destabilize religion. This reasoning is in accord with a world deeply marked by glaring North-South inequalities, where tourism is seen as a form of voyeurism of the haves vis-à-vis poverty. Of course, if such tensions do exist, they are not unambiguous either. Western "tourists" may turn out to be propagators of a faith that conflicts with the established one. For example, in the Sahel evangelical missionaries were able to infiltrate with a simple tourist visa, in turn stirring up mistrust of all Western travelers. Thus, rumors, often more than the proven facts, could lead to real religious conflicts marked by assassinations.

The question of Cohabitation

11There remains the question of a potential cohabitation between tourists (a priori "passive" and "non-participatory" voyeurs) disrupting rituals and regenerating religions. The answers to this question range, as we have seen, from absolute prohibition (Mecca and Medina) to total integration. In political decision making, taking into account the economic fallout, but also the recognition that can be drawn from proselytizing media coverage, openness wins. The integration of a maximum number of participants in a territorial development project, if it is successful, leads to combining energies and propels, for example, pilgrims from Mecca to visit Saudi Arabia outside the strictly religious context (Alzahrani, 2014). But tourists are also seen as a disruptive element in certain ceremonies when they do not share the codes or the dogmas. For many monasteries of contemplative orders it is truly disquieting. Avoiding mixing with visitors can be considered essential to the serenity of a contemplation that is supposed to take place outside of the world. They will only welcome people (believers or not, by the way) making a retreat. In open spaces such control can be more difficult. The tourists coming to photograph cremations in India along the sacred rivers appear to be out of place in the eyes of the bereaved families. In addition to the fact that reciprocity does not exist, such behaviors (e.g taking selfies where we show ourselves, by making a "V" of victory in front of a gravepost) appear to express a contempt for the other, those whom we visit, who has the impression of seeing himself rendered as a mere curiosity. Such a feeling in the host country can lead to friction. Conversely, one could also argue that this craving for exoticism revalues a tradition that was sometimes on the decline: a ritual that arouses the curiosity of people from afar is proof of its importance. This validates it and helps to prolong it, even if it is distorted, like a folklore show.

Forms of Hybridization

12Without taking any theoretical and conceptual risk, we could say that hybridization characterizes the tourism / religion relationship. Tourism is certainly a materialist phenomenon (experiencing an "earthly paradise" here below, for example) but ultimately also a form of paganism (the experience of the earthly paradise remains a belief that challenges monotheisms). It can appear as a new religion when it offers experiences such yoga courses in Ashrams, “healing” retreats in monasteries ... and conversely, religious practice increasingly borrows the logistics of tourism (travel agencies, air flights, hotel chains, standardized catering ... tourist regulations for travel). Thus the departure of jihadists to the Islamic State (IS) is recounted by enlisted men as akin, albeit with a few pretenses, to a tourist trip organized by a tour operator. Cults can sometimes be seen as genuine tourist destinations. We think of Yoga workshops in lamasseries in Nepal, then everywhere else in the world. Thus the mythic Mandaron, prototype of the eccentric syncretic sect, was conceived as a "holiday" village, even in its panoramic position, on the kitschy model of a theme park (Duval, 2002).

The tourist gradient

13Religious phenomena among of the well-known central objects of cultural tourism. The encounter most often takes place “cold”, tourists visit sites and monuments which are no longer in use, or even desecrated, and sometimes it is then a question of reinterpreting their religious character. Examples include Mayan or Aztec pyramids, Polynesian marae but also Angkor Wat, mountains and other sacred hills. There are also "lukewarm" cases such as the monuments of Christianity which are visited more often (in Europe at least) when they are less frequented by the faithful or when they are neglected by their clergy. (monasteries where people go for retreats, the Camino of Santiago de Compostella).

14Finally, the question of "hot" tourism arises when religion dominates public spaces (a prime example is the Western Wall). This leads to prohibitions on both sides. Non-Muslims are forbidden to enter mosques in Morocco or the Holy Places of Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia. They are also forbidden to visit ancient archaeological sites, still in Saudi Arabia, which would call into question the chronological doxa of the creation of the world, for the Muslim pilgrims of Mecca for example. A particular case that would merit a specific analysis is that of the Notre Dame de Paris Cathedral, which was both a place of worship and a major tourist site, whose fire in 2019 showed how it was a powerful symbol for many French, but ultimately for many people in the rest of the world (Notre Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo revised by Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame movie having played a major role in the imagery of its typicality). This resulted in donations to cover the costs of restoration, but also a questioning of the modality of the restoration while respecting the religious monument.

15The complex relationships between these two prominent social phenomena of religion and tourism are not unequivocal. At first glance these two phenomena seem opposed, in purpose if not perhaps their dynamics. Tourism has been shattered for a time by the pandemic, but the revival of religious fundamentalism seems to have to be analyzed as a response to the materialism that tourism conveys. One promises paradise in the hereafter while the other offers it at the end of a pleasure trip. Also the reborn religious (revival) is defined among other things as a reaction to what tourism can mean in terms of the secularization of society, "misguided" mores, eroticization of behavior, or voyeurism of the intimate. The religious as "guardians" of "living tradition » can engineer to weaken tourism as a component of "materialistic" modernity (double negative of religious ideology). Even if things are not so clear-cut, however, because pilgrimage will be inspired in its move upmarket by the professionalism of tourist operators and the large groups to whom it will appeal. The fact remains that tourism, at its margins, is no longer all-conquering but is forced to fall back on its still secure positions. On the contrary, one "posture" (sometimes a ruse? think back to the discovery of Timbuktu or the trip of Alexandra David Neel) consists in traveling as a pilgrim (or disguised as a pilgrim) to continue exploring. the outskirts of the open world. This kind of touristic opportunity seems to shrink in the face of the rise of fundamentalism, presenting a lesser-known obstacle (Kassouha, 2018). By mingling, tourism and religion participate in the invention of a new hybrid form, which will perhaps become the predominant form of the still complicated relationship they maintain.

The contents of the Volume

16This thematic number that Via devotes to this topic has found its justification. The many proposed articles that we have received show the great interest of the scientific sphere in this question. Even if they cannot answer all the questions, we see below that interesting points have been addressed, particularisms revealed, or ambivalences uncovered. The gradients from materialism to idealism, from secularization to fundamentalism are explored in this issue.

17The article by Katerina Seraïdari, “The Baptistry of Lydia, Northern Greece : Religious Tourism, the place of the cult and the ritual events”, examines how this emblematic baptism (believed to be the first in Europe, because it was there, in the River of Philip, that St. Paul baptized Lydia, in 49-50 AD) was first celebrated in the 19th Century by the Greek elder, Lampakis : thus transforming the water of the Phillip River into a museological object. Then, after the church was built there, that which had not been located historically, was monumentalized and anchored in the soil! This case allows us to better understand the four principal parameters of religious tourism : the religious site, the personages, the objects and the events.

18In his article “Religious tourism: an end to the oxymoron?” subtitled “Reflection on practices combining tourism and religious phenomena”, Marie-Hélène Chevrier notes that a certain "indeterminacy" remains in the definition and use of the expression in the scientific field. It therefore aims to clarify it and returns to the distinction between tourism and pilgrimage in order to deepen the idea of a continuum and "to grasp more precisely the contemporary evolutions of the tourism / religious dialectic".

19Anne Ouallet, in “Tourism, heritage and Islam: Fez, the tourist pole and the Tijan pole” shows that Fez is both in the world circuit of world heritage sites and the beacon of the international circuit of Tijan networks. Two types of tourist flows thus converge on the city, each of them is part of its own itineraries and they respond to specific logics: the inclusion of Fez as a UNESCO World Heritage Site generates flows of non-profane tourists, not motivated a priori by religious belief, except to think that heritage has become one. At the same time, the Tijan sanctity of the city attracts individuals or groups, many of whom have wandered along the international routes of Islam and are part of a vast movement of religious tourism.

20The article by Maria Adriana S. B. Teixeira, Lúcia Cláudia Barbosa Santos, and Maria Jacqueline Ramos Iwata, “Turismo religioso em municípios do estado do Amazonas” (“Religious tourism in the towns of Amazonas State”) deals with key religious aspects of three major tourism events religious in the State of Amazonas, Nossa Senhora do Carmo (Parintins), the feast of Santo Antônio de Borba (Borba) and that of Nossa Rainha do Rosário (Itapiranga). Their main characteristics are to maintain the religious traditions handed down from generation to generation, to strengthen devotion to the local patron saint and to promote relations between the people who participate in these festivals.

21In “Cultural itineraries and religious heritage”, Isabelle Brianso shows that since 1987, the geographical traces (road, path, way) of the Middle Ages have been transformed into “Cultural itineraries certified by the Council of Europe”. They were once frequented by travelers and pilgrims from Europe, they now attract a diversity of walkers with heterogeneous profiles (inhabitant, walker-pilgrim, tourist-hiker) forming multi-communities with social, religious and heritage values. They therefore play a central role in the recognition of this cultural creation as a recent heritage category at the crossroads of cultural geography, landscape and communicational processes.

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23Nathalie Jarraud and Sylvie Clarimont wonder about “Lourdes, a hotspot for religious tourism, between crisis and transition?” The obsolescence of certain tourist places has been modeled by transposing the concept of the life-cycle of a product and this approach has been applied in Lourdes, a major place of religious tourism. The COVID 19 crisis, by shaking the Lourdes system, could accelerate the transformation of the destination and promote its transition. Even if the Sanctuary offers certain innovations, they are part of a logic of "adaptation-resilience" rather than a logic of transformation. For the moment, the crisis seems to have rather exacerbated the tensions among the actors that has stimulated a combining of energies around the common project, a transition towards more sustainable tourism.

24In addition to these articles in the dossier, are two essays and two analyses of photographs. Michel Bonneau asks himself “When did the Christian pilgrim become a tourist?” He analyzes the evolution of pilgrims' behavior from the origins to the 15th century in the Holy Land. It tackles a theme rarely analyzed, that of pilgrim behavior vis-à-vis the secular world. The accounts available from the fourth century onwards show that the pilgrim gave no room to the secular world around him, turning entirely towards the sacred place to be reached. Behaviors gradually evolved from the 13th century and into the 14th century, with pilgrims becoming increasingly interested in the real world around them. The evolution was almost completed in the 15th century to the point that, during their travels to the Holy Land, pilgrims were keen to visit natural sites, beautiful landscapes, monuments and ruins, markets or emblematic high places recognized as wonders, like the Pyramids. The search for these "singularities" became the driving force behind the movement which is no longer made solely for the purposes of pilgrimage and salvation.

25Salvatore Santuccio presents “Il viaggio a Loreto: turismo religioso e turismo culturale” (The trip to Loreto: religious tourism and cultural tourism). The Basilica of Loreto has been a pole of attraction for pilgrimages since the spread of the “Loreto tradition” which tells of the miraculous journey from the birthplace of Mary from Palestine to Loreto, accompanied in flight by some Angels. During its history, this important religious center has also become an important monument of Italian Renaissance art and architecture, one of the most important cultural centers in central Italy. This has contributed to the fame of the basilica and to the international interest of many researchers who are certainly attracted by the symbolic religious value of the remains of the building, but also by its artistic and historiographical content.

26Moulay Salah Oumoudden and Rhaled Alzarhani also compare the two phenomena in “Religious tourism in Saudi Arabia : Between Pilgrimage and Consumerism ”. For Muslims, the annual Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, is at the heart of religious tourism. It is considered one of the Five Pillars of Islam, with the obligation to perform once in their lifetime, for those who are physically and financially able to do so. Nearly two million people, coming from the four corners of the world, therefore go to Mecca every year, and the "Hajj ministry" supports the organization of pilgrimages to holy places for Muslim populations and also takes care counting the number of visitors.

27Finally, Anthony Goreau-Ponceau presents and comments on “An entertaining pilgrimage?” The photos follow a group of women from Theni, a small town in the eastern state of Tamil Nadu, who left to go to the Arulmigu Adhiparasakthi Siddhar Peetam temple in Melmaruvathur. Their journey was made during the Irumudi Shakti Malai pilgrimage period, during which pilgrims - especially women - flock from all over Tamil Nadu to express their devotion to Amma (Mahādevī or Adi Parashakti), the mother goddess.

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Bibliographie

Alzahrani, Kh. (2014), Du cultuel au culturel : le tourisme international en Arabie Saoudite, Thèse de l’université de Grenoble, UMR Pacte.

Duval, M. (2002), Un ethnologue au Mandarom : Enquête à l'intérieur d'une "secte", PUF.

Jameson, F. (2007), Le Postmodernisme ou la logique culturelle du capitalisme tardif, Beaux-Arts de Paris, Ed originale 1991, Duke University Press,

Khasouha, Z. (2018), Le tourisme en Syrie, passé, présent, futur : entre résilience et réinvention, Thèse de l’université d’Avignon, UMR Espace-Dev.

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Référence électronique

Philippe Bachimon et Hervé Thery, « Tourism and Religion », Via [En ligne], 20 | 2021, mis en ligne le 15 décembre 2021, consulté le 29 mars 2024. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/viatourism/7949 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/viatourism.7949

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Auteurs

Philippe Bachimon

Professeur émérite, Université d'Avignon

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Hervé Thery

Directeur de recherche émérite au CNRS-Creda, Professor na Universidade de São Paulo (USP-PPGH)

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Traducteur

Nelson Graburn

University of California, Berkeley

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