Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Pilgrimage : Historical, Current and Future Directions

As a niche field, pilgrimage studies has long been multidisciplinary and draws interest from pilgrims, practitioners, and academic scholars. Despite the burgeoning corpus of pilgrimage literature, there is a gap related to disciplinary-specific publications which reflect how pilgrimage is conceptualised and studied by academics. Moreover, many academic publications assume the reader is familiar with particular research methods and/or theoretical paradigms that inform the work, which is often not the case. The goal of the current volume is to present a foundational text for understanding various disciplines that contribute to the field of pilgrimage studies and to bridge the gulf between academic scholarship and ‘popular’ pilgrimage literature. To this end, each chapter is organised in a similar format, which includes an overview of the discipline or field of study, a brief history, and the types of questions that are addressed by the discipline. Building on this foundation, the chapters include a section on contemporary literature pertaining to pilgrimage or pilgrimage-like phenomena. Authors further consider theoretical perspectives and methodological concerns. Finally, authors explore recommendations for future research and/or directions for advanced exploration. The volume includes chapters from disciplines formerly silent on pilgrimage phenomena such as public administration, information studies, and digital humanities.