Pilgrimage Circuits, Folk Religion, and Migration

Pilgrimage, as a form of travel, is a complex process, which could be stated as placed, emplaced, and displaced, as well as migratory processes of cultural ecology and community identity. Human mobility has empowered faiths and cults to undertake pilgrimage as an agent of cultural identity. Simultaneously, spaces of pilgrimage become spaces of contestation of community identities. This chapter problematizes and explains the concept of pilgrim centers and routes through examples of migrated, displaced, and relocated cultural communities. Specifically, how various community cultures, even after their migrations, attempt to retain and claim their identities through pilgrimages and pilgrim centers. The chapter also examines how these networks can strengthen identities or create schisms within and among cultural identities. Conceptual questions that emerge in the theoretical framework of the chapter include how pilgrimage space is created, governed, and allowed to play a pivotal role in making and unmaking of cultural identities. Where and how do pilgrimage and pilgrim centers delegate the concept of community identities? How are community identities further formulate and problematize notions of pilgrimage? How do communities interact, share ideas, and acculturate in and around the ideas and spaces of pilgrimage? These are a few questions that will be reflected and explained through case studies. Further explained in the chapter, are the transregional pilgrimage centers and their entities within the India to further discuss the theoretical aspects of the pilgrimage and their networks.