Paper short abstract:

By connecting the notion of laterality to studies on situated learning and legitimate peripheral participation, this paper intends to explore the dimension of learning in pilgrimage, among ascetic practitioners involved in the contemporary revitalisation of a premodern route in Katsuragi.

Paper long abstract:

In his recent book, Simon Coleman (2021) has advocated the need to capture zones of operation which “derive yet simultaneously deviate from conventional or expected orientations and stances” in pilgrimage practice, by using the concept of “laterality”. In my paper, I wish to show how this concept may have interesting connections with another important domain of practice, rarely addressed in the anthropology of pilgrimage: the dimension of learning. In their study on situated learning, Lave and Wenger (1991) have in fact argued that every form of learning is a social practice producing individual and collective subjectivities, and learners usually acquire skills by laterally engaging in “legitimate peripheral participation”. By connecting these ideas to studies on learning in anthropology of religion (Berliner and Sarrò 2009) and semiotics (Landowski 2004), we will see how the concept of legitimate peripheral participation bears striking resemblances with laterality, opening interesting perspectives on pilgrimage practice. I will explore these themes through my long-term ethnography in Katsuragi, Japan, among pilgrims engaged in the contemporary revitalisation of a premodern ascetic pilgrimage, linked to the twenty-eight sutra mounds of the Lotus Sutra (Katsuragi nijūhasshuku no kyōzuka). By following the situated learning activities of these ascetic pilgrims in their lateral attitudes and courses of action, we will see not only how pilgrimage becomes a deeply adaptive and dynamic practice, including improvisation and adjustment, but also how by learning a pilgrimage and acquiring skills in often unpredictable situations, practitioners learn how to become pilgrims.

Paper short abstract:

With the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24 2022 many sacred sites and pilgrimage routes in Ukraine became endangered and some were physically damaged. In this paper I will focus on virtual pilgrimages to Ukrainian Christian shrines which appeared in Polish internet during the war.

Paper long abstract:

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has been followed by many people all over the world through various Internet media. Not only official news agencies but also ordinary people have been creating messages and putting footages of horrible events happening in their cities, villages and neighborhoods. Among images depicting atrocities of war, reports on religious shrines and endangered or damaged pilgrimage sites have also appeared. In this paper my focus will be on Christian shrines in Ukraine (mostly Orthodox and Greek Catholic). I will analyze, in particular, virtual pilgrimages to Ukrainian Christian shrines which appeared in Polish internet during the war.

The first week of the war coincided with the beginning of the Lent season in the Roman Catholic church (Ash Wednesday on March 2; the Orthodox and Greek Catholic Lent in 2022 began on Monday, March 7). At this time “The Lent pilgrimage through Ukraine” was initiated on Facebook by one of the Catholic portals in Poland. Other religious and spiritual on-line responses to the war also followed and many of them can be interpreted through the category of pilgrimage.

In this paper I will discuss a few examples of these activities that reflect the complex role played by the “hashtag pilgrimages” in time of war. The transformative dimension of these pilgrimages is highlighted by reflections on the material dimension of pilgrimage sites and routes, spiritual consolation, bodily and timely involvement in pilgrimage as well as questions concerning ecumenical and interreligious relations (Roman and Greek Catholic, various Orthodox churches).

Paper short abstract:

This paper aims to elucidate how a Shinto Shrine in Japan has created a network through kinship and relatedness. How pilgrimage is not only a religious place but a place where several social relationships have been created. It concludes that it connects people of different social worlds.

Paper long abstract:

This study aims to examine how a Shinto shrine created a network through personal ties to substitute the role of the local community. In Japan, urbanization and modernization has weakened the old concept of local community. This is also the reason for numerous shrines falling out of favour (Morioka 1968; Ishii 1998). However, the HKN shrine which is situated in Ibaraki prefecture's rural periphery is still prosperous and putting in effort to attract worshipers and tourists. Takatani and Numazaki (2012) in the book "Tsunagari no jinruigaku", expanded Carsten's concept of relatedness and focused on how community forms outside the sphere of kinship, locality and workplace through social relatedness. However, along with social changes the form of community has also changed and traditional community which was based mostly on primary relations such as kinship and spatial relations has weakened. Consequently, in many depopulated suburbs, networks of people who share common economic interests have replaced the local community. In "The urban black community as network," Oliver (1988) postulates "By viewing community in network terms, we can examine the personal, organizational, interorganizational levels (e.g., Turk 1970) that vary in ways in which these communities are organized" (1988, 640). In the case of this shrine multiple networks of interpersonal ties have been created to sustain the shrine. This paper describes how the shrine connects people of different social worlds and concludes that more than kin and relative outsiders help to operate the HKN shrine.