John Eade

Pilgrimage and tourism at Lourdes, France

Abstract Despite the contribution of the “Turnerian tradition” to the analysis of the similarities between tourism and pilgrimage, developments within the study of pilgrimage call for a critique that can reveal the complexity of pilgrimage and tourism. This study of a Roman Catholic shrine explores the various meanings and practices that underlie the categories of “pilgrim” and “tourist” in a locale where Turnerian communitas is strictly limited. These interpretations try to establish the essence of Lourdes, but the contestation of meanings and diversity of practices contradict these essentialist interpretations. The terms pilgrim and tourist need to be deconstructed in order to expose the contradictions and ambiguities.

Competing visions of identity and space: Bangladeshi Muslims in Britain

Abstract This article explores the role of politics in public debates about what it means to be a Bangladeshi Muslim in contemporary Britain. It examines the history of Bangladeshi community activism, tensions at work in the political arena, and the part played by Islamist leaders and organisations. It grounds this analysis not only in Tower Hamlets, the ‘heartland’ of the community, but also in Oldham and Birmingham where there are substantial, if scantily researched, concentrations of British Bangladeshis. Through a study of the competing visions of identity and space, this article explores the ways in which secular and religious leaders seek to represent their community in the public sphere. It also discusses the ways in which local political dynamics are shaped by (mainly ideological and social) transnational networks.

The impact of globalization on sociological concepts: Community, culture and milieu

Abstract Out of Giddens’ (1990) emphasis on modernity and Robertsons (1992) on globality emerges the need to conceptualize globalization in relation to the social per se. An exemplificatory conceptual case study points to global processes straining older concepts formed for nation state sociologies:deterrtorialization of the community concept results in the imagined community; global culture signals the fragmentation of the culture concept; ‘milieu ‘ has to be extended and generalized for global relevance. Globalization makes the structuration of new forms and types of groups and social relationships a key conceptual problem for sociology. But its impact also highlights the generative processes for new sociological concepts.

Nationalism and the quest for authenticity: The Bangladeshis in Tower Hamlets

Abstract Developments within Tower Hamlets during the 1980s have revealed the way in which identities are constructed through political discourses and practices. The emergence of Bangladeshi community organisations in Tower Hamlets during the early 1980s and the political developments within the borough encouraged the articulation of a primordial Bangladeshi identity which linked British Bengalis to political struggles both within their country of origin and in Tower Hamlets. The political discourse was associated with Bangladeshi national rituals and with competition for public resources within the borough. Recent political developments at local and more global levels have encouraged the articulation of another primordial, Islamic solidarity which forged a bond between Bangladeshis and other members of an imagined, universal Islamic community. The prioritisation of a particular identity — Bangladeshi or Islamic and, in other contexts, black, Asian or British — needs to be located, therefore, within polit...

Introduction: Mobility and Centring in Pilgrimage

Pilgrimage has become a major cross-disciplinary area of research in recent years. In an era of global mobility and imposition of novel forms of ‘flow’ and ‘closure’ (Meyer & Geschier, 1999; cf. Bauman, 1996), during which we are witnessing religious resurgence quite as much as secular apathy, pilgrimage continues to inspire scholars to think about the complex interplay of forces involved in its emplacement within, and flow through, numerous social and cultural contexts. But perhaps more than any other type of mobility, pilgrimage makes sense in relation to a destination. It is this purposeful movement in relation to an end goal that forces us to think about what is involved in its momentary stasis. In pilgrimage, as in tourism and migration, destination as a place is often captured through the notion of a ‘centre’ – that goal towards which movement gravitates and where pathways converge, a kind of ‘attractor’ in the nodal network of mobilities around which objects, emotions, cultures and people circulate (Turner, 1974; Urry, 2003). The centre is conceptualised as a point at which these flows and relationships between them become temporarily grounded, a site of brief ordering, a location which situates so that movement can become imbued with meaning. Much analysis of pilgrimage and related tourism has been concerned precisely with processes of movement of people to and from centres, with forces that stimulate or hinder these journeys, and with the transformative dynamics that surround their interstices (e.g. Cohen, 1992). The notion of place as centre has therefore been implicitly or sometimes explicitly ‘central’ to scholarly depictions of pilgrimage, not least in Victor Turner’s (1973) famous article ‘The Center out There’ (a piece that straddled anthropology and religious studies in its theoretical orientation). In the context of recent theoretical shifts within a number of disciplines from static descriptions of social behaviour towards more dynamic models of social life as process, subsequent work in tourism and pilgrimage (e.g. Coleman & Eade, 2004; Rojek & Urry, 1997; Timothy & Olsen, 2006) has given primacy to the notion of movement at the expense of ‘centre’. Yet, as Soja (1989) reminds us, in the postmodern world of mobility and decentring, centres nevertheless hold. As some dissipate, fall apart, dissolve or fade away in oblivion, others are formed, reinforced and reinvented. The nodality of the centre defines and Mobilities Vol. 2, No. 3, 321–329, November 2007

Religion, home-making and migration across a globalising city: Responding to mobility in London

During the last 60 years three forms of mobility have played a crucial role in the process of home-making across London – global migration, suburbanisation and gentrification. While these mobilities have been extensively analysed in terms of secular processes, the role of religion is becoming ever more evident and this paper seeks to contribute to this growing understanding by analysing the involvement by different Christian churches in the making of multiple homes across the metropolis. Various aspects of this home-making process are explored – the ways in which Anglican churches have responded to global migration and gentrification, as well as the challenges of increasing ethnic and ritual diversity for Methodist and Catholic congregations. Religion is intimately involved in diverse crossings of spatial and cultural boundaries and the construction of multiple dwellings (immediate and virtual). While global migration, suburbanisation and gentrification operate here in specific local contexts across a particular city, these modes of mobility operate around the globe and encourage comparison with American and Australian cities.

Introduction: Guiding the pilgrim

Drawing on existing research in the fields of pilgrimage and tourism studies, the introduction to this special issue reviews the ways in which guiding has been theorized and explored within the two fields, therefore putting them in dialogue with one another. Presenting guiding as a form of mediation, the authors construct a theoretical framework for the analysis of pilgrimage and guiding through adapting Eade and Sallnow’s (2000 [1991]) analytical triad of person, place and text. Arguing that person, place and text may fruitfully be seen as embedded in notions and practices of mediation, they explore (a) how such mediation involves forms of ideologically charged framing, editing, concealment and revelation, through which different and often competing accounts of pilgrimage journeys, destinations, and experiences are produced, and (b) the sources of legitimation of the various forms of guiding present in the fields of pilgrimage and travel, as well as their effects on journeys, participants, and destinations.

Parish and Pilgrimage in a Changing Europe

In Western Europe the Roman Catholic Church is facing the challenge of declining parish congregations and religious vocations. At the same time the numbers of people visiting pilgrimage shrines has steadily increased. The increasing popularity of diverse forms of pilgrimage both highlights the limitations of the historic model of bounded territorial units (parishes and dioceses) and provides an opportunity for religious officials to engage with those who are not regular members of local churches. These developments and tensions will be examined here in the context of the famous Marian shrine of Lourdes in France.

Pilgrimage studies an expanding field

(2015). Pilgrimage studies an expanding field. Material Religion: Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 127-129.

Crossing Boundaries and Identification Processes

This article provides a commentary on seven papers published in a special issue led by J. Dahinden and T. Zittoun in this journal. The papers explore social polarisation, boundary making, inter-group dialogue and migrants’ movement between groups in the context of religion. The exploration is undertaken from different disciplinary backgrounds and in various countries across Europe as well as in Australia. A critical engagement is developed with some of the key issues raised by the papers. This engagement begins by drawing on critiques of ‘groupism’ and then proceeds to consider the role played by process, power, knowledge and governmentality in the context of both time and space. The discussion is supported by illustrations from the case studies provided by the papers. The discussion also links issues raised by the papers to developments within Britain over time and in urban space, which involve the state, Muslim community representatives and the everyday practices of Muslim citizens in London, particularly those concerned with the body.