Abstract

Religious tourism refers to contemporary patterns of travel to sacred places and has taken many forms owing to different motivations of visitors. Researchers have discussed motivation, activities, and behaviour of visitors in framing what constitutes religious in religious tourism, but little attention is given to spatial manifestations of religious practice. Towing this direction, I examine the significance of religious practices to spatial arrangements in Hindu pilgrim towns in India by juxtaposing the concept of “spatial practice” from Lefebvre’s theory of production of space with an indigenous approach called the “sacred-complex model”. A fieldwork based collective study of six pilgrim-towns, namely, Alandi, Jejuri, Pandharpur, Tuljapur, Shegaon, and Shirdi, which represent a full spectrum of religious tourism destinations in India, provides a sound comparison of similarities and differences in spatial practice of religious tourism. In this analysis, four themes emerge: (1) the engagement of religious actors in religious rituals and performances over space defines the boundaries and territories of the sacred and religious; (2) the performance area of religious practice has reduced from traditional pilgrimage landscape to specific routes providing access to the main attraction which is a built structure (shrine/temple); (3) religiousness is also created by non-religious and seemingly “profane” commercial activities; (4) without the explicit expression of religiousness there is no opportunity for religious tourism or any other form of tourism. They are organized and presented following different principles from attractions elsewhere in the world, and that they are more important in the lives of the Indian people who visit and maintain them than they are to the Western tourist. Using spatial lens has reinforced that religious as a prefix, is a stronger and an essential concept for religious tourism in the non-western context of India, that needs to be factored in for sustainable management of religious tourism destinations.

摘要

宗教旅游是指当代前往圣地的方式，由于游客的不同动机而采取了多种形式。研究人员讨论了游客的动机、活动和行为，以构建宗教旅游中的宗教构成，但很少关注宗教实践的空间表现。沿着这个方向，我通过将列斐伏尔的空间生产理论中的“空间实践”概念与一种被称为“神圣复合模型”的本土方法并列，研究了宗教实践对印度印度教朝圣城镇空间安排的重要性。基于实地考察的六个朝圣城镇的集体研究，即 Alandi、Jejuri、Pandharpur、Tuljapur、Shegaon 和 Shirdi，它们代表了印度全方位的宗教旅游目的地，对宗教旅游空间实践的异同进行了合理的比较。在这一分析中，出现了四个主题：（1）宗教行为者参与宗教仪式和空间表演，界定了神圣和宗教的边界和领土；(2) 宗教活动的表演区从传统的朝圣景观减少到特定路线，提供通往建筑结构（神社/寺庙）的主要景点；(3) 宗教性也是由非宗教性和看似“世俗”的商业活动造成的；(4) 没有明确表达宗教信仰，就没有宗教旅游或其他任何形式的旅游的机会。它们的组织和呈现遵循与世界其他地方的景点不同的原则，并且它们在访问和维护它们的印度人民的生活中比对西方游客更重要。使用空间镜头强化了宗教作为前缀，是印度非西方背景下宗教旅游的一个更强大和基本的概念，需要考虑到宗教旅游目的地的可持续管理。