Researching pilgrimage: Continuity and Transformations

Pilgrimage is one of the oldest and most basic forms of population mobility known to human society, and its political, social, cultural and economic implications have always been, and continue to be, substantial. This study aims to examine key issues, arguments and conceptualizations in the scholarship on pilgrimage in order to better understand how it has changed over the years. The findings indicate a shift to a postmodern approach within the study of pilgrimage, particularly with regard to the increasingly obfuscated boundary between tourism and pilgrimage reflected in the terms secular pilgrimage and religious pilgrimage. Dedifferentiation has penetrated the scholarship in terms of its features and its multidisciplinary treatment by researchers.