The spatial practice of religious tourism in India: a destinations perspective

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.