Hardback
March 2022
9781789249392
More details
  • Publisher
    CABI
  • Published
    3rd March 2022
  • ISBN 9781789249392
  • Language English
  • Pages 192 pp.
  • Size 6" x 9"
$135.20

Women and Pilgrimage presents scholarly essays that address the lacunae in the literature on this topic. The content includes well-trodden domains of pilgrimage scholarship like sacred sites and holy places. In addition, the book addresses some of the less-well-known dimensions of pilgrimage, such as the performances that take place along pilgrims' paths; the ephemeral nature of identifying as a pilgrim, and the economic, social and cultural dimensions of migratory travel. Most importantly, the book's feminist lens encourages readers to consider questions of authenticity, essentialism, and even what it means to be a "woman pilgrim." The volume's six sections are entitled: Questions of Authenticity; Performances and Celebratory Reclamations; Walking Out: Women Forging Their Own Paths; Women Saints: Their Influence and Their Power; Sacred Sites: Their Lineages and Their Uses; and Different Migratory Paths. Each section will enrich readers' knowledge of the experiences of pilgrim women. Readers' understanding will be further enhanced by the book's:

  • interdisciplinary nature: the contributors hail from a wide range of disciplines, including Anthropology, Political Science, French, Spanish, Fine Art, and Religious Studies;

  • uniqueness: the text brings together previously scattered resources into one volume;

  • feminist perspective: much of the subject matter utilizes feminist theories and methodologies and argues that further research will be welcome.
The book will be of interest to scholars of pilgrimage studies in general as well as those interested in women, travel, tourism, and the variety of religious experiences.

PART I: QUESTIONS OF AUTHENTICITY
1: First-class or Coach? Women as Tourists and Pilgrims, 1888-1928. Maryjane Dunn.
2: Romeras, Rameras, and Royals: Female Pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago in Medieval and Early Modern Spain. Sharenda Holland Barlar.
PART II: PERFORMANCES AND CELEBRATORY RECLAMATIONS
3: Sacred Queenship: Elizabethan Progress Entertainments and the Memory of Pilgrimage. Susan Dunn-Hensley.
4: Feminizing the Camino: How Festivals are Being Reimagined for Inclusivity. Alison T. Smith.
PART III: WALKING OUT: WOMEN FORGING THEIR OWN PATHS
5: Pilgrimage and Piety: Alternative Paths to the Convent. Sarah E. Owens.
PART IV: WOMEN SAINTS: THEIR INFLUENCE AND THEIR POWER
6: ‘All you need is Faith’: Sainte Foy, Furta Sacra, and Saint Mary Magdalene. Lisa F. Signori.
7: (Re)Thinking out Gobnait: Memory and Presence in Folklore and Landscape. Vivienne Keely.
PART V: SACRED SITES, THEIR LINEAGES AND THEIR USES
8: Women Pilgrimage Artists and Their Lineages. Emma Rochester.
9: The Entwinement and Imprint of the Legendary Diviner-Healer Mantsopa and the St. Augustine Priory: The Complexities of Mantsopa Pilgrimages. Shirley du Plooy.
PART VI: DIFFERENT MIGRATORY PATHS
10: ‘What One Does of Necessity’: Twentieth Century Irish Women as Seasonal Migrants and Working Pilgrims. E. Moore Quinn.

E. Moore Quinn

E. Moore Quinn has been working in pilgrimage studies for many years, having participated in several of them in Ireland, Canada, and the United States. Interested in social justice pilgrimage in particular, she has written about the re-sacralization of certain global sites. Quinn co-hosted with Ian McIntosh the first two global "Sacred Journeys" conferences at Oxford University (2014-2015); it was there that she refined her holistic perspective on the subject. Thereafter, Quinn served in several co-editorial positions, including Pilgrimage in Practice: Narration, Reclamation and Healing (CABI 2018) and "What is Pilgrimage?," a special issue published in the Journal of International Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage (IJRTP) in 2018. Quinn served as guest editor (with Diane Austin) for the journal Practicing Anthropology in 2007; she also guest-edited Irish Studies Review (ISR) in 2010 and 2015.

Alison T. Smith

Alison T. Smith first stumbled upon the Camino de Santiago while hiking in the French Pyrenees in 1995. It was through the study of film, most notably Luis Buñuel’s The Milky Way, that her scholarly exploration of pilgrimage got its start. Smith has published several articles and book chapters on pilgrimage, and she regularly presents her research at conferences. A former Associate Director of Women’s and Gender Studies at the College of Charleston, Smith brings a feminist approach to her scholarship, and she promotes diversity and inclusivity in her pilgrimage practice. She has walked sections of the Camino de Santiago in France and Spain with colleagues, with students, and alone. Recently she served as a volunteer at the Ribadiso Pilgrim Welcome Center in Spain and walked the Kerry Camino with fellow pilgrimage scholars in Ireland.

pilgrimage; women and sacred travel; feminist perspective of pilgrimage; women’s spirituality; Santiago de Compostela; feminine sacred; spiritual journey; Camino de Santiago; women and sacred journeys; toxic masculinity; essentialism; seasonal migration; economic pilgrimage