Landscape aesthetics, meaning and experience in Christian pilgrimage

Within the humanities and social sciences, and society at large, there has been a resurgence of interest in pilgrimage in recent years. The primary aim of this research project is to bring a new perspective to understanding the significance of place in studies of Christian pilgrimage, with a particular focus on landscape as a lens through which pilgrims visualise and experience the spiritual, as well as being the site of the performance of pilgrimage itself. While previous studies have identified place as a central element of pilgrimage (along with people and texts), the spatial aspects of pilgrimage have been framed in terms of static shrines and their surrounding architecture, spatial networks of shrines or pilgrims, spaces of mobility and performance, and sacred space as a reflective 'void'. While the location of many pilgrimage sites in areas of outstanding natural beauty has been noted, the role of the landscape and its aesthetics in 'sacred place', religious and emotional experience in pilgrimage centres has been given little attention. We are interested in whether landscape aesthetics adds to a pilgrimage site's 'spiritual magnetism', how this is experienced and articulated by pilgrims and other visitors, and whether this blurs the distinction between pilgrims and other visitors. Another issue is whether landscape aesthetics attract large numbers to the sites, reducing the quality of experience and environment.

Drawing on an interdisciplinary perspective grounded in social and cultural geography, history and theology, this research project will examine the significance of landscape in three international case studies, reflecting and comparing different denominational practices within the Christian tradition. Each case study focuses on the landscape as a site of religious experience and repository of metaphors and journeys, exploring evolving interactions between pilgrims and landscape over time and in the present day through written accounts, visual representations, participant observation, surveys and interviews.

Case Studies
1. Metéora (literally 'suspended in the air'), Greece, is one of the largest monastic complexes and pilgrimage destinations of the Orthodox church, Byzantine monasteries are built on natural sandstone rock pillars several hundred meters high and are deemed to constitute one of the most evocative landscapes in the world. Largely inaccessible prior to 1923, road access has opened the monasteries to large numbers of Orthodox pilgrims and tourists. In the Orthodox tradition, pilgrimage (or proskynese) refers to the act of bowing down to an icon, or to relics, rather than the act of journeying. At the Meteora, however, proskynese cannot be divorced from moving through and gazing at the surrounding landscape.
2. The Benedictine monastery of Sacro Speco ('Holy Cave'), near the town of Subiaco in central Italy enshrines the cavern where at the end of the fifth century St Benedict lived as a hermit for three years. The monastery provides a sacred landscape engineered to evoke sites in the Holy Land and the life of St. Benedict through a complex topography of loci memoriae. The monastic complex attracts three different types of 'pilgrim': the Catholic faithful's re-activation of Benedict's life and Christian narratives; tourists' visual consumption of the scenic views from the monastery; and humanist scholars to the library of the nearby monastery of Santa Scolastica.
3. The Isle of Man was a foundation site of the early Celtic church, but had little tradition of pilgrimage in the post Reformation era. The meaning and means of the recent reanimation of local pilgrimage through the 'Praying the Keeills' initiative will be explored with reference to the 1997 joint centenaries of Saints Ninian and Columbaa, Protestant and ecumenical initiatives, and the role of coastal landscapes in attracting 'pilgrims' (including non-adherents) and their experience of pilgrimage.

Who will benefit from this research? How will they benefit from this research?

Three key communities which will benefit from this research and are potential users for research outcomes :

1. Academics interested in pilgrimage and sacred place, conceptual and methodological developments building on ideas of geopiety and theoplacity through the lens of landscape as place, site of experience/performance and aesthetic spiritual experience. Notably this includes those working in theology, geography, history, anthropology, sociology. (See academic beneficiaries for fuller discussion).

2. Groups in civil society including religious communities and related charities. Religious orders and wider faith communities associated with the locales of the case studies will gain insight of pilgrim and visitor motivations and experiences and how to facilitate/ democratise/ conserve access to sacred pilgrimage sites.

Examples include:
The Meteora Orthodox monastic communities, Greece.
'The Friends of Mount Athos' (who organize annual pilgrimages to Orthodox monasteries, talks, conferences, and publications for the general public).
The Sacro Speco Benedictine monastic community, Italy.
The Praying the Keeills Ecumenical Pilgrimage Group, Isle of Man.
Associations promoting ecumenical dialogue such as Monastero di Bose Ecumenical Community
http://www.monasterodibose

3. Those involved with pilgrim/ tourist/ site management, including faith communities, religious institutions, local government and local/national departments of tourism.

The empirical findings will shed light on pilgrim/visitor experience at each case study site, which can be used to inform pilgrimage/ site promotion and related management issues e.g. the interaction of faith-based pilgrims and those visiting primarily as cultural tourists - and where these blur; also balancing access to and income generation from sacred heritage sites and high value aesthetic landscapes and the needs of faith adherents, including local communities. The case studies may also shed light on debates about using public spaces for belief rituals, with implications for potential conflict, consensus discourses and/ or policing.

What will be done to ensure that they have the opportunity to benefit from this research?

Reports on initial empirical findings will be summarised for Meteora, Sacro Speco and Manx faith communities and local government, tourism departments. Although the local faith communities are not formal partners in this research, their input will be central to findings and will de facto become informal partners, which may allow other outlets such as writing for their newsletters, providing informal consultancy etc..
Representatives of the above groups will be invited to academic workshop disseminating findings.
Communication of findings will be disseminated to academic community through a day workshop when case study findings will be presented to an audience of experts and work may be revised in the light of this engagement; we will convene a dedicated conference session and present papers at the American Association of Geographers conference - the largest international gathering of geographers and related researchers working on landscape. Individual papers will also be presented at specialist and interdisciplinary conferences.
Publications: a collaboratively written monograph on landscape and pilgrimage will be based on integrated findings; Individual and co-authored papers will be published in leading peer-reviewed journals such as J. of Historical Geography; Emotion, Society & Space; Landscape Research; Cultural Geographies; Mobilities; J. of Contemporary Religion, Modern Theology, J. of History of Religion.

The podcast will be available internationally via the internet; Scafi has previous experience of radio presentations and podcasts (see cv).
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