Gender, Nation and Religious Diversity in Force at European Pilgrimage Sites

Project leader: Professor Wilhelmina Jansen, Radboud University Nijmegen (Netherlands)

This project aimed to unravel the relationship between the ways in which people express their religion through pilgrimage and the new religious, social and political conditions in a rapidly changing Europe. It focused on the social force of religion through gender, nationalism and religious confrontation in European pilgrimage centers. An experience-near approach to pilgrimage processes yielded significant qualitative data on pilgrimage as event, on pilgrim behavior and processes of meaning construction/negotiation of pilgrimage acts, symbols and objects.

The lived religion of pilgrims in a changing Europe was studied by an international and multi-disciplinary (anthropology, gender studies, religious studies) team from the Netherlands, Sweden and Ireland. The researchers followed pilgrims from different ethnic, religious and national background to the European pilgrimage sites in Spain, Portugal, France, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Germany, Sweden, Poland, Ireland, Italy, Turkey, and the Netherlands.