How to Be a Pilgrim: Guidebooks on the Norwegian St. Olav Ways and the Heritagization of Religion
The Norwegian St. Olav Ways are currently the largest Northern European project re-institutionalizing pilgrimage as cultural heritage, providing a new framework for vernacular religious practices to a wide audience. In this article we approach the current pilgrimage revival in Northern Europe as par...
| Published in: | Numen |
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| Subtitles: | Special Issue: Reframing Pilgrimage in Northern Europe |
| Authors: | ; |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Brill
[2020]
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| In: |
Numen
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| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Norway
/ Olaf, II., Norwegen, König 995-1030
/ Nidarosdom (Trondheim)
/ Pilgrimage
/ Cultural heritage
/ Spiritual tourism
/ Guide
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| RelBib Classification: | AG Religious life; material religion CD Christianity and Culture KBE Northern Europe; Scandinavia |
| Further subjects: | B
heritagization of religion
B immersion B Pilgrimage B interpretive drift B pilgrim guidebooks |
| Online Access: |
Presumably Free Access Volltext (Verlag) Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | The Norwegian St. Olav Ways are currently the largest Northern European project re-institutionalizing pilgrimage as cultural heritage, providing a new framework for vernacular religious practices to a wide audience. In this article we approach the current pilgrimage revival in Northern Europe as part of a trend toward a heritagization of religion that allows new religious self-understandings to emerge. We analyze pilgrim guidebooks to the St. Olav Ways with regard to their narrative scripts, detailing how they can create expectations, inform the pilgrims’ conduct, and direct their attention toward a history that translates into a heritage. Based on a corpus of published pilgrim journals and diaries, we argue that the guidebooks instruct a process of interpretive drift, which influence the pilgrims toward embracing and embodying a new role within the religious field. The guidebooks invite the pilgrims to take on the role of heirs to a medieval European tradition. |
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| ISSN: | 1568-5276 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Numen
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1163/15685276-12341600 |