The post-secular tourist: Re-thinking pilgrimage tourism

Introduction

The post-secular denotes the resurgence/return of matters religious in public space in Western societies. A key implication of which is that conventional understandings of political, social and cultural processes and phenomena based on secular modernity have become problematic (see Braidotti, 2008; Habermas, 2006; McLennan, 2010; Taylor, 2007). The coming of post-secular society has opened up interesting transdisciplinary research and perspectives. A key challenge is to draw out the multiple interplays of tourism with the post-secular. Research in tourism and the post-secular suffers from a double neglect. On one hand, the post-secular debate has neglected the role and place of religious tourism and pilgrimage journeys in the post-secular. On the other hand, tourism research in general, religious and pilgrimage tourism in particular, has neglected the post-secular debate. Just to mention one example, the debate on the post-secular is absent in the recent special issue of Tourist Studies Guiding the Pilgrim (Mesaritou, 2016). None of the articles address the post-secular and pilgrimage tourism.

The role of tourism in the coming of the post-secular is undertheorized, both in tourism studies and the post-secular debate (Nilsson, 2016). Tourism studies needs to seriously engage itself with the post-secular, just as theories and studies of the post-secular have to accord centre place to tourism in post-secularism. As underscored by MacCannell (1989 [1976]), there is an intrinsic religiosity to tourism – the tourist is a ‘secular pilgrim’. Moreover, the quest for meaning which has been a major drive for tourism is also a key attribute of the post-secular. In as much as tourism seeks meaning beyond or outside modernity and in that sense in spaces other than secularly modern, it shares a common ground with the post-secular. Hence, we table that tourism lies at the core of the post-secular turn and should be studied as such. The coming of the post-secular raises several questions and issues that challenge tourism studies in general and theory in particular. For instance, the relevance of the sacred-secular distinction in tourism studies, notions of tourist subjectivities as either modern secular or traditional pilgrim, and conceptions of tourist destinations.

This study has two major objectives. First is to fill in the research gap regarding the dialectical relations between post-secularism and tourism, thereby underscoring the role and place of tourism in the post-secular. Inasmuch as, tourism is an activity that is characterized by an intrinsic religiosity, it ipso facto traverses the secular–sacral divide. Second, it is to establish post-secular tourism as one of the key spaces where the post-secular condition is articulated.

This article has seven sections including the previous introduction. In section ‘What is the post-secular?’, we discuss the major aspects of the post-secular and post-secularism, followed by post-secular religiosity in section ‘Post-secular religiosity’. In section ‘Tourism, pilgrimage and the post-secular’, we deliberate on the manifold relations between tourism, pilgrimage and the post-secular in general. Section ‘Research methods’ provides a description of the study area, methods and statistical data on pilgrimage. The previous sets the stage to elaborate further on the concept of post-secular tourism launched by Nilsson (2016), as way of understanding and analysing the dialectics between tourism and the post-secular, in section ‘Santiago de Compostela and Fisterra’ of this article. The theoretical section of this article draws largely from Nilsson’s thesis (2016). This article ends with a brief conclusion that recapitulates the main arguments and suggests avenues for further research in this regard.

What is the post-secular?

The secularization of society has been a key lens in theorizing politics, culture, economy and society in modern social theory. According to the secularization thesis, religion was supposed to wane or disappear and give way for science and rational thought. However, in recent decades, growing doubts have been cast on the triumphalist narrative due to the resurgence of religion in Western societies. Although de-secularisation (Berger, 1999) and re-sacralisation (Taylor, 2007) have also been used, post-secular is the term that has received wide currency to denote the return of religion in the contemporary world. The concept is associated with Habermas (2006, 2008), although Van Peursen (1989) spoke of the post-secular era way back in 1989. In 1983, Edward Said had already questioned the death of religion in modernity due to secularization and even alerted us to its return. The proponents of the post-secular thesis have even questioned whether religion was at the margins of modernity. As Rorty and Vattimo (2005) ironically put it, what we are witnessing is actually ‘the return of religion after religion’. As noted by Milbank (1990) and Kong (2010), modernity should be seen not as a break with the sacred but rather as a continuation of matters religious by other means. The alleged death of religion is premature or misdirected. The post-secular debate indicates that religion has in any case re-asserted itself in public life to such an extent that it can be neither ignored nor assumed away (De Vries, 2013). Irrespective of a perceptual shift has occurred or not, at the very least post-secular narratives should be seen as expressions of a beginning disintegration of the hegemonic secular narrative. According to Sigurdson (2009), the post-secular (a) questions the secular meta-narrative, (b) re-assesses the significance of religion and religiosity in understanding social events and phenomena and (c) underscores the liberalization and individualization of faith and religiosity in our time. Moreover, one of the distinguishing features of the public life today is that expressions of religiosity have become much more common than before, as indicated by research on new subject oriented philosophies (Asad et al., 2009; Gallagher and Newton, 2009; Grimshaw, 2013; Sointu and Woodhead, 2008). New religious subjectivities can be read as expressions of what has come to be known as the subjective turn (see Heelas and Woodhead, 2005; Taylor, 1991).

The return of religion in public life in contemporary Western societies has been theorized in two competing ways. The first claims that the return of religion heralds a clear break from the secular age and points to a new social, cultural and political condition – the post-secular (Habermas, 2006, 2008). The second competing claim argues that the return of religion does not represent a break from the secular, rather the heightened individualization of faith and the further erosion of denominational religions and religious practices in the West – as such, a deepening of the secularization processes of modernity (Berger, 1999; Taylor, 2007). The two standpoints differ in their estimations of the extent to which religion and religiosity should be given prominent place in the contemporary. However, the two positions agree that some form of revision of the secularization thesis is required.

The post-secular condition has not been taken for granted. In the academic debate on post-secularism, three key questions have been contested. Namely, (a) what are the normative values that underly post-secularism, (b) what light does post-secularism shed on the current condition, and (c) can it corroborated empirically (Bader, 2012; Beckford, 2012; Gorski et al., 2012; McGhee, 2013). One of the normative values that the post-secular carries with it is the universalization of a specifically Western condition. The implication being that the key role of religion in many present day societies outside the West is erased or denied. In this article, the post-secular is understood as a predominantly Western phenomenon. When it comes to the question of explanatory potential of the notion of the post-secular, we argue that it sheds light on current expressions of religiosity in the context of tourism. The question of whether the post-secular can be proven empirically will be addressed in section ‘Santiago de Compostela and Fisterra’ of this article, specifically in relation to pilgrimage tourism.

Post-secular religiosity

Theories of the post-secular strive to shed light on discourses, practices and current articulations of contemporary religion, as well as the implications of the resurgence religion in social life (Bracke, 2008; Beaumont and Baker, 2011; Sigurdson, 2009). The post-secular has been formulated as, noted above, God returns or the return of God, but this is not a return to former religious traditions. Rather, it points to a new kind of religiosity, one that is based on flexible forms of religiosity. Post-secular religiosity is non-denominational, is an individualized religious practice and as such one that does not strive to establish new denominational belief systems. Rather, post-secular religiosity taps on existing institutionalized forms of religion and re-works them to its own ends (Nilsson, 2016).

The post-secular designates a condition where the influence of religion is more palpable in different spheres of society. The coming of post-secular society goes in tandem with the emergence of what Inglehart (1977) named the ‘post-material society’. He argued that since the 1970s, Western societies accord issues of self-fulfilment central place in their self-identity and life-worlds. According to Giddens (1991), erosion of traditional authority, increased individualization and pluralism produce a condition of ontological insecurity wherein existential issues become paramount. Post-secular religiosity can be read as an expression of post-material culture, the quest for ontological security, self-reflexivity, such that individuals have ‘no choice but to choose’ (Giddens, 1991: 81). The core of post-secular religiosity is therefore the non–a priori nature of religious faith. Faith, in other words, is not transcendental (ontological), but rather immanent (ontic). Heidegger thought along the same lines, when he described religious faith as a form of individual rebirth (see Crowe, 2006; Metcalf, 2010). Religious faith is the spiritual dimension of Dasein. Religiosity is no longer bound to authority, rather it has become a matter of individual choice. Traditional religions lose authority as their canon is challenged by individuals and religious pluralisms. Religious faith is no longer a given, if it was ever. Thus conceived, unlike traditional faith, post-secular religiosity denotes non-hierarchical, self-oriented forms of religiosity(Taylor, 1989; Rowe, 1999; Sigurdsson, 2009). Contemporary religion in the West, argue Asad (1993) and Wilford (2010), has been de-institutionalized and consists of a bricolage of faiths. The de-institutionalization of religion and its attendant re-definition is a key aspect of post-secular religiosity (Gökariksel, 2009). Current religiosity is individualistic, voluntary, multifaceted and merges a variety of religious faiths (Gallagher and Newton, 2009).

Post-secular religiosity is at once historical and material yet it is also non-committal (Nilsson and Tesfahuney, 2016). Traditional religious narratives, rituals, myths and symbols provide an arena where post-secular religiosity is played out, yet these are contingent but not necessary (Gökariksel, 2009). Post-secular religiosity strives for continual becoming, rebirth and is centred on self-discovery. Faith, in other words, is not given a priori rather something that is in constant becoming (Nilsson, 2016). As such, post-secular religiosity is non-denominational and thus goes beyond established religious conventions, practices and spaces of the monotheistic ‘world’ religions. Denominational belonging is not central to post-secular religiosity (Davie, 2000).

Open-mindedness, curiosity and search for meaning as attributes of post-secular religiosity undermine the (universal) canon of institutionalized religious denominations. The pluralistic, relative and individualized nature of post-secular faith is an index of the further weakening of the era of dominant Western religious faith and narratives. A paradoxical implication of which is the widening of the religious sphere in contemporary Western societies, with ramifications for individuals, groups and societies, and expressions of new cultural and personal spiritual identities (Heelas and Woodhead, 2005; Holloway, 2006).

Tourism, pilgrimage and the post-secular

Stausberg (2011) alerts us that tourism in contemporary Western societies is a significant bearer of religiosity and thereby echoes Turner and Turner’s (1978) classic statement that ‘[a] tourist is half a pilgrim, if the pilgrim is half a tourist’ (p. 20). Irrespective of how contemporary society is conceptualized, it is evident that our age is characterized by flux, mobility and placelessness, all of which are key attributes in and for tourism (Ek and Hultman, 2007; Tesfahuney and Schough, 2016). There is a need to draw out the place of tourism in the resurgence of religion in public life as well as the manifestations of matters touristy in the religious sphere.

We would like to underscore that tourism has an ambivalent relation to modernity, an ambivalence that is of relevance to the understanding and conceptualization of not only post-secular tourism (see section ‘Santiago de Compostela and Fisterra’ below) but also tourism as such. Tourism is Janus-faced (Munar and Jamal, 2016; Wang, 2000). However, tourism is a child of secular modernity and is a space where key attributes of modernity such as freedom, individualism, self-fulfilment, adventure and marvel and so on are played out. Moreover, tourism mobilities are a by-product of modernization and, as noted by Enzensberger (1996 [1958]), it was only during modernity that tourism journeys became an end in itself. At the same time, tourism is a flight from modernity, a counter-reaction to the ‘trivial’, ‘hollow’ and ‘dreary’ everyday urban life. An expression of the quest for meaning, perhaps best exemplified in the eighteenth century romantic view of place and idyllic life. Löfgren (1989) famously defined tourism as an individual longing for never-never land. Moreover, tourism has the celebration of difference and new experiences as a key trait – tourism is the dialectic of logos and eros, as Wang (2000) put it (Kingsbury, 2005). In this sense, tourism is an anti-modern or even a post-modern phenomenon. Despite or in spite of an apparent anti-modern stance, the tourist cannot avoid being enmeshed in it. Not least, since tourism is contingent on the complex infrastructure of modernity for its experiences. In sum, tourism is both a product and a negation of modernity.

The question is, what are the ties that bind tourism to the post-secular? Tourism articulates the post-secular in several ways. First, tourism is inherently religious and the tourist is a pilgrim of sorts, a secular pilgrim to be precise (MacCannell, 1989 [1976]). Second, the tourist is one who pursues meaning outside of modernity and one who searches for pristine experiences. Escape from the modern world has been the signum of tourism. Tourism, like religion, shares the quest for higher or deeper meaning (Ahlin, 2005). It can be argued that there is an inherent spirituality to tourism, albeit in a different sense than the strictly religious. Third, tourism has been a major factor in the preservation of traditional religious sites and destinations. Tourism has saved sacred places and spaces from the slaughterhouse of modernity, most evidently in the pilgrimage phenomenon (Reader, 2007). Fourth, and related to its ambivalent nature, tourism is a movement that embodies both transcendence and immanence, the supernatural and the mundane, the search for higher meaning and hedonism (Ek and Tesfahuney, 2016; Kingsbury, 2005; Löfgren, 1989). Fifth, tourism like the post-secular becomes an arena where individuals experience a kind of rebirth, ‘a new lease’ of life (Elsrud, 2004). Last but not least, to the extent that the post-secular can be characterized as faith in non-faith, it shares the constant search for the extraordinary that is at the heart of tourism (Urry, 2002 [1990]). As noted previously, the post-secular is non-committal, an attribute that is also shared by the absence of loyalty to places or destinations that characterizes tourism. Partly, this has to do with the capricious tendencies of tourists in their choice of destinations, travel behaviour and the vagaries of fashionable tourist places. In brief, the constant quest for meaningful experiences, authentic places and journeys that are typical of tourism mirrors the post-secular pursuit of existential answers and a life of meaning.

In as much as historically pilgrimages have embodied religion and tourism, pilgrimages offer a fruitful entry into our deliberations into the various interplays between tourism and post-secularism. Eck (1981) distinguishes two major ways by which religion is upheld in journeys of pilgrimages: first, as an instance of affirming religious faith, and, second, as a way of reinforcing the sacredness of religious destinations. Religious faith combined with ordeals, suffering and penance as ways of purging the body and soul in order to come closer to God have historically been central elements of pilgrimages journeys (Cavanaugh, 2008; Jebb, 1986). As the recent anthology by Albera and Eade (2015) shows, pilgrimages come in a variety of forms and contexts, and tourist studies should be attuned to alternative perspectives and practices of pilgrimage. Moreover, loyalty to sacred places, symbolic and cultural capital associated with the journey, ritualistic investments and meaning attached to performing the pilgrimages are additional features that have several resemblances with tourist journeys (Graburn, 1989; Nash, 1996; Nilsson, 2016; Nolan and Nolan, 1992).

In as much as tourism sets value on authenticity, multiplicity and difference as well a pastiche of subjective experiences; is bound to localities and places; and shares several resemblances to post-tourism/post-modernism (Cohen, 1998; Feifer, 1985; Jansson, 2002; Rojek, 1995; Urry, 2002 [1990]; Urry and Sheller, 2006). Notably, Cohen (2008) has argued that to be a post-tourist is to quest for subjective unicity defined as tourist’s own experience. The existential is a key dimension of Cohen’s (1979) typology of tourist experiences and shares commonalities with religious experiences. In this sense, it is not so much the unique attributes of places and destinations as the subjective experience that is of paramount importance.

The resurgence of tourist journeys to sacred places is also an intimation of a growing interest in matters religious. To Shinde (2007), this is also a sign of the growing individualization of religious faith in Western societies, in itself an expression of the post-secular. In all, the above signals change rather than continuity (Collins-Kreiner, 2010; Della Dorra, 2012; Lois-González and Santos, 2014; Reader, 2007; Sharpley and Sundaram, 2005), which in turn points to the need to put the post-secular at the centre of the agenda of tourism research.

Research methods

This article is based on interviews of pilgrims in the region of Galicia, specifically the pilgrim trails to Santiago de Compostela and Fisterra between 2011 and 2014. Although both destinations are well-known pilgrimage sites, Santiago de Compostela is by far the most famous and popular destination of the two. Pilgrims were interviewed in Santiago de Compostela in February 2011, September and December 2012, respectively, whereas the fieldwork and interviews in Fisterra were conducted in September 2014. The time span for the interviews was 4 days in Fisterra in 2014. For Santiago de Compostela, the duration was 6 days in 2011 and 9 days in 2012. All the interviews were conducted outside the pilgrims’ shelters in the respective destinations, at different times of the day. The interviews were conducted in the pilgrimage season (September) and off season (February and December). No significant differences in the narratives of the respondents tied to season could be detected.

The interviewees were asked whether they were willing to be part of the study on pilgrimage. A single question, open narrative interview was used in collecting information from respondents who were selected randomly, at both locations. A narrative interview is appropriate if one wants to draw out deeply meaningful and personal stories and experiences. Narratives offer productive ways of capturing the motivations, reasons and investments individuals have in relation to events and place that are of significance to their lives. Narratives are also the way individuals perceive and construct their world, a way of being in the world. The question asked was, ‘Tell me the story of your pilgrimage’. The interview was ended when the respondents themselves felt that they had told their story without being interrupted. Items in their narratives that needed clarification were solicited at the end. The interviews conducted varied in length from 15 minutes to approximately an hour. The total number of respondents included in this study was determined by the degree of saturation in the replies given by the respondents, that is, nothing new came out from additional narratives interviews. The interviews were transcribed. In all, the sample consisted of 79 respondents – 66 percent in Santiago de Compostela and 34 percent in Fisterra. Only one respondent declined to be interviewed because he was mourning his daughter who had passed away recently. All of our respondents were first-time visitors. Only six members of the same family in the sample were practising Catholics. All interviewees had registered as pilgrims at the registry in Santiago de Compostela. The gender distribution of the respondents was 36 (46%) females and 43 (54%) males. The age range of the respondents was from as low as 7 years to as high as 71 years. The geographical origin of the pilgrims shows that the majority 62 (78%) came from Europe, followed by North America 11 (14%) and Latin America only 3 respondents, while only 2 respondents came from Asia, specifically South Korea. Only one respondent came from Africa, namely, South Africa, and none were from Oceania. All of our respondents were offered the choice to remain anonymous, but they declined. Still, we have chosen to anonymize the respondents (see Nilsson, 2016 for further details).

Santiago de Compostela and Fisterra

The study area lies in the region of Galicia, in the northwestern part of Spain bordering Portugal. Santiago de Compostela and the grave of the Apostle St. James were consecrated as holy places by the Catholic Church in the ninth century. The main Catholic pilgrimage trail (ca. 900 km) stretches from the Pyrenes (in France) to Santiago de Compostela. The Il Camino has been studied in extensive detail in the works of Frey (1998), Gitlitz and Davidson (2000) and recently Lois-González (2013). Fisterra is located in the Atlantic coast 100 km west of Santiago de Compostela. Although historically the trail to Fisterra was not part of the Catholic pilgrimage, today this distinction has become blurred since a growing number of pilgrims to Santiago de Compostela continue their journey to Fisterra, notwithstanding the declarations by the Catholic Church that Fisterra is not the final destination of Il Camino. A major reason for the growing popularity of Fisterra is that increasingly pilgrims view Santiago de Compostela as a mass tourism destination (Blom et al., 2016). The Papal visit in the 1980s, the recognition of Il Camino and Santiago de Compostela as World Heritage Site by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the bestseller novels by famous writers such as Coelho and Kerkeling put the sacred place on the map. However, it is the pilgrims themselves who have been the major marketing force of Il Camino and the trail to Fisterra. The Pilgrims Office plays a minor role in the marketing of the pilgrimage (Frey, 1998).

As noted by Badone (2014), there has been a resurgence in pilgrimages throughout Catholic Europe. So too in Santiago de Compostela, where we note significant increases in the number of registered pilgrims since 1985, the year it became an official UNESCO World Heritage Site. Since then, on average the growth rate has been ca. 8000 pilgrims per year and the total number of pilgrims stands at around 250,000 annually. No official data on the number of pilgrims who continue their journey to Fisterra are available, as it is not included in the Catholic trail. The statistics for Fisterra are based on certificates issued by the hostels/shelters in Fisterra and have been collected since 1998. We observe a rapid increase in pilgrimages to Fisterra as well. According to Frey (1998), who is considered an authority on pilgrimages in Galicia, in 1998, ca. 10 percent of the pilgrims to Santiago de Compostela continued their journey to Fisterra. The number of Fisterrana certificates issued in 1998 was almost 2000, to be contrasted with 22,987 issued in 2014 (Nilsson, 2016). In absolute terms, one notes at least a 10-fold increase in the number of pilgrims who continue their journey to Fisterra between 1998 and 2014. Although the proportion (10%) identified by Frey (1998) is more or less the same, the field observations in Fisterra suggest that not all pilgrims acquire the Fisterrana certificate.

In what follows, we identify, present and analyse the key themes that emerged from the empirical material as they pertain to the articulation of the post-secular in and through tourism in Santiago de Compostela. A central question that we put to the material at hand is, to what extent does the articulation of the post-secular enable us to talk of a new form of tourism, namely, post-secular tourism?

Post-secular tourism – mobile ontologies of spiritual becoming

From the empirical material in Galicia, we were able to discern four major and interrelated traits that typify post-secular tourism, namely, (self-)reflexivity, quest for ontological security, heterodoxy and topos-disloyalty. The four major traits share in common what may be denoted as mobile ontologies of spiritual becoming, that is, new sense of self, insights into ones place in the scheme of things and relation to others on the pilgrimage (Maddrell, 2013; Nilsson and Tesfahuney, 2016). We elaborate on these themes below.

Conclusion

The growing academic debate on the post-secular condition, manifested in the growing number of publications and research on post-secularism, is an indication of the rising interest in matters post-secular (for recent examples, see Barbato, 2010; Bettiza and Dionigi, 2015; Nilsson and Tesfahuney, 2016). Nowadays, the concepts of the post-secular and post-secularism are more or less established in several social science disciplines. Still, it is as if research and academic debates on the post-secular have yet to make inroads to tourism studies. Indeed, this is ironic given that there is an intrinsic religiosity to tourism (MacCannell, 1989 [1976]), and given that some claim that tourism itself is a child of religious pilgrimages. Likewise, Salazar (2012) states that tourism is in fact an outgrowth of the pilgrimage tradition (see Cavanaugh, 2008; Rinschede, 1992). Actually, Poria et al. (2003) go as far as elevating tourism to the status of the new religion of modernity (see also Sharpley and Sundaram, 2005). Pilgrimage tourism has been the major area of research in both studies of tourism and religion, with a predominant focus on pilgrimages and pilgrimage destinations as articulations of institutionalized religion. Of late, research on tourism and religion has shown a growing interest on new forms and expressions of religiosity. Mention can be made of studies of New Age tourism (Pernecky and Johnston, 2006), spiritual tourism (Sharpley, 2009) and holistic tourism (Smith and Kelly, 2006). Spiritual tourism has been used as an umbrella concept to talk about expressions of new religiosity in and through tourism. The focus has been narrow in the sense that spiritual tourism has not been placed in the wider debate of the post-secular. As indicated by Sharpley (2009), these studies failed to take note of ‘the shifting role of religion/spirituality in contemporary societies and the subsequent ways in which tourist journeys, sites and places may be experienced by apparently secular or nonreligious tourists’ (p.250).

So, in what sense can post-secular tourism be seen as a way of re-thinking pilgrimage tourism? The post-secular tourist seeks authentic experiences in the spaces of modernity, that is, traditional religious and sacred places. Whereas MacCannell (1973) identified ‘staged authencity’ as a by-product of the commodification of tourist destinations, the post-secular tourist is more akin the figure that seeks ‘existential or emergent authenticity’ suggested by Cohen (1998) and Wang (2000). In other words, the post-secular tourist as noted above creates his or her own personal authentic (spiritual) experience. If visiting sacred places is the primary or indeed major objective of traditional pilgrimage, post-secular journeys have the journey itself as the primary objective. In contrast to MacCannell’s figure of the secular tourist as pilgrim, the post-secular tourist is one that traverses the sacred-secular divide, neither traditional pilgrim nor secular tourist but one that embodies both. Moreover, the post-secular tourist fits in well with theorizations of tourism that emphasize ‘performativity, embodiment, materiality and the non-visual experience of place’ (Edensor, 2007: 8) in tourism studies (see also Baerenholdt et al., 2004; Edensor, 2009). In relation to the three typologies of tourist performance identified by Edensor (2001), namely, directed, identity-oriented and non-conformist, post-secular tourist performance shows attributes of identity-oriented and non-conformist types. The post-secular tourist seeks ‘status, meaning and distinction’ (p. 74), but is also non-conformist inasmuch as post-secular tourism is anything but ‘customized travel’ and does not follow a ‘master [religious] script’ (p. 73).

The coming of post-secular society has opened up interesting transdisciplinary research and perspectives. The study shows that tourism lies at the core of the post-secular turn and should be studied as such. Four major attributes of post-secular tourism were identified: (self-)reflexivity, quest for ontological security, heterodoxy and topos-disloyalty. Our findings indicate that the post-secular tourist transcends conventional dichotomies religious pilgrimage and tourism, journeying as affirmation of denominational faith and space. The post-secular tourist transgresses established spaces of religiosity and seeks as well as ascribes alternative (usually individual and spiritual) meanings to sacred places. Post-secular tourism is about ontogenesis, that is, it is performative rather than proscribed, identity, pilgrimage and faith. It is in this sense that one can speak of post-secular tourism as something open, unfinished and in constant becoming. As one of our respondents put it, ‘life is something that continues, continues, continues, … what comes next, what comes next, continually’. What can we say about the implications of our study in relation to current tourism research? In an overarching sense, questions of the post-secular lie at the centre of current debates on how to theorize not only the place of religion in modernity but also the social as such. Although it has been a while since Milbank’s (1990) call for a specifically theological social theory, a call that has been echoed recently by Kong (2010) in the sub-discipline of geography of religion, we have as yet to see similar invitation in tourism studies and specifically religious tourism.

In this article, we have deliberated on a new category of pilgrim tourist and some of its key attributes. Our findings suggest that post-secular tourism (re)construct pilgrimage places in novel ways, neither sacral nor secular, but rather a hybrid or combination of both – spaces that are neither explicitly modern/secular nor traditional/sacred. The post-secular tourist emerges as a heterodoxic, topos-disloyal and self-reflexive figure that is on the quest for ontological security. A major implication of our study is that conventional theories and perspective on pilgrimage, tourism and place/space need to factor in post-secular pilgrimage as a relevant category in studies of religious tourism. This article is a modest contribution towards that end.