Tourism Visitors, Pilgrimage and Contested Spaces: Community, Heritage, Ecology and Perception

Abstract

Tourism and pilgrimage in the twenty-first century have evolved as major drivers of local, regional, and even national economies. Indeed, pilgrimage has long been an important social and economic facet of many communities. Nevertheless, need and desire for pilgrimage generates multi-layered issues of contested spaces and competing uses between different religious persuasions and secular communities. Such issues have occurred throughout the history of pilgrimage and tourism, triggering political and other conflicts. This chapter addresses specific issues of modern tourism, leisure, and pilgrimage with English case-studies and reference to stakeholder perceptions of pagans and non-pagans today. Perceptions and attitudes are significant forces raising difficult issues when mainstream, mass tourism and outdoor recreation impact on pagan sites and landscapes. When perceived sacred sites become landscapes for outdoor sporting activities, there are potential conflicts. In English National Parks, originally designated in the 1940s and 1950s, priorities were quiet recreation and conservation. However, increasing demand for outdoor active leisure and mass tourism, and regional economic benefits, means a change in basic assumptions. This generates issues of site and space ‘ownership’. Whilst traditional mainstream locations, e.g., medieval Christian churches, are recognised as places of quiet reverence, pagan landscape-based religious sites are not. Additional conflict occurs in now recreational landscapes between secular spiritual visitors to ‘wild’ sites seeking nature-therapy through solitude, and mass tourism or active sports. With National Park management increasingly driven by potential economic impacts, decision-makers overlook these issues and less mainstream stakeholders like modern-day pagans and those seeking spiritual experiences in nature. For pilgrimage and wider tourism, the study triggers questions of whose religion, heritage, landscape, and benefit. Long-term action research in English National Parks and other protected areas suggests these are rarely addressed by mainstream conservation of nature and heritage, by tourism managers, or regional planners. The chapter reviews issues, long-term observations, and action research with stakeholders, with reference to detailed case-studies and stakeholder feedback to consider paradigms. Specific questions are (1) of ‘ownership’ of space and nature as sacred sites in National Parks and other protected areas in England; (2) of attitudes and connection to nature and landscape by pagan and non-pagan communities; (3) the degree to which connection to nature in English National Parks represents spiritual experience; and (4) how pagan stakeholders in English National Parks represent an invisible community. It is argued that mass tourism destinations, National Parks, and other protected areas creates contested spaces between multiple stakeholder groups with these spiritual landscapes overlooked by managers and decision-makers. The issues and findings are transferrable to other geographical and social settings.