Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Pilgrimage : Historical, Current and Future Directions

As a niche field, pilgrimage studies has long been multidisciplinary and draws interest from pilgrims, practitioners, and academic scholars. Despite the burgeoning corpus of pilgrimage literature, there is a gap related to disciplinary-specific publications which reflect how pilgrimage is conceptualised and studied by academics. Moreover, many academic publications assume the reader is familiar with particular research methods and/or theoretical paradigms that inform the work, which is often not the case. The goal of the current volume is to present a foundational text for understanding various disciplines that contribute to the field of pilgrimage studies and to bridge the gulf between academic scholarship and ‘popular’ pilgrimage literature. To this end, each chapter is organised in a similar format, which includes an overview of the discipline or field of study, a brief history, and the types of questions that are addressed by the discipline. Building on this foundation, the chapters include a section on contemporary literature pertaining to pilgrimage or pilgrimage-like phenomena. Authors further consider theoretical perspectives and methodological concerns. Finally, authors explore recommendations for future research and/or directions for advanced exploration. The volume includes chapters from disciplines formerly silent on pilgrimage phenomena such as public administration, information studies, and digital humanities.

Heather A. Warfield is Associate Professor of Counseling, Psychology & Therapy at Antioch University New England. She received her Ph.D. from North Carolina State University in 2013 and, prior to moving to New Hampshire, taught at the University of Southern Queensland in Australia. Dr. Warfield’s research is broadly aimed at exploring the psychological and therapeutic dimensions of pilgrimage journeys. Over the past two years, her investigative focus has narrowed to the historical and contemporary pilgrimages to the Western Front of World War I. During 2022–2023, she is a Fulbright Scholar at the Université de Lille and her research examines post-WWI pilgrimages to Belleau, France. She is the project director for the Yankee Division Virtual Pilgrimage, funded by New Hampshire Humanities and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. In addition, she is a member of Ruines de guerre and an affiliated researcher of the Institut de Recherches Historiques du Septentrion at the Université de Lille. Dr. Warfield is the series editor of Pilgrimage Studies.