Pilgrimage: Key Terms and Typologies
Pilgrimage is not only about traveling to sacred temples or churches because it is a concept that has evolved in the twenty-first century to mean much more. Today, scholars define pilgrimage broadly as a purposeful journey toward a destination that holds special meaning. Sometimes the significance lies in the place itself, sometimes in the journey. Often, the trip carries transformative or commemorative power.
By Judy Wallace. I study pilgrimage broadly, examining how people create and experience meaningful spaces which are religious, cultural, or secular. My academic work is entirely scholarly and does not proselytize, approaching cultural and religious practices with objectivity and critical analysis. I also anticipate that future research, especially on non-Western cultures, religions, and diaspora communities, will reveal new types of pilgrimage and expand our understanding of these practices.
Importantly, pilgrimage does not have to be religious. It can be cultural, political, or even spontaneous. It can help us understand how people create meaningful spaces and how communities contest, inhabit, or celebrate them. Sacredness might be officially recognized by religious authorities or it might emerge organically from popular devotion, collective trauma, cultural memory, or political conviction.
Pilgrimage Typologies: A Few Essential Terms
Protest Pilgrimage
These journeys are acts of political or social engagement. People travel to sites of injustice, state power, or symbolic importance to bear witness, demand change, or embody opposition. Think civil rights marches, climate justice walks, or pilgrimages to sites of environmental destruction.
Play Pilgrimage
Some pilgrimages are dramatic reinactments of historical or cultural participation. Destinations might include film locations, music festivals, sports arenas, or sites connected to beloved fictional worlds. One notable example is the Oberammergau Passion Play in Germany, a dramatic enactment of the Stations of the Cross that has drawn audiences for centuries. Yet it has faced criticism, particularly from Jewish communities, for antisemitic portrayals. Over time, the production has modified its rhetoric and presentation in response, reflecting broader social and cultural shifts.
Parade Pilgrimage
These are collective processions or ceremonial movements that transform public space. Following established routes with cultural, religious, or civic significance, they include festival parades, military, military music, or war parades, and postwar commemorative marches. Through movement and communal participation, these marches valorize the past. More research could contribute to understanding a theory that valorization is protective against the moral injuries inflicted by war.
Pilgrimage to Sites of Pain
Some pilgrimages are journeys through the shadows of human history. Travelers visit sites marked by atrocity, trauma, or war, not out of voyeurism, but to witness, remember, and honor those affected. These journeys are acts of ethical engagement: they foster empathy, reflection, and moral responsibility. By confronting painful histories, visitors participate in collective remembrance and bear witness to suffering.
Prospective Pilgrimage
These future-looking journeys are motivated by hope and the desire for transformation. Travelers seek spiritual insight, personal healing, or freedom. They hold idealism promising renewal, revelation, or life-changing encounters. Labyrinth walking is a long term practice. In African and diasporic Black communities, spirituals and sacred church music envision freedom as a future perfect place and time, with pilgrimage lyrics affirming this hope. Humanitarian and faith-based workers remain alert to Christian persecution in parts of Africa and the Black diaspora.1
Preaching Pilgrimage
These are itinerant religious revivals led by spiritual teachers, evangelists, or missionaries, often associated with revival meetings. The focus is on transformative ecstatic and immediate/nontime bound encounters rather than reaching a fixed destination. Central to many of these gatherings is the altar call, a ritualized invitation for participants to respond to the message, seek spiritual renewal, or experience conversion. Mass baptisms are major expressions of preaching pilgrimages. The sermon itself functions as an art of the spoken word for instruction, inspiration, and communal religious engagement.2
Planetary Pilgrimage
These environmentally motivated pilgrimages honor the Earth itself. Travelers visit sites of geological or ecological significance, biodiversity hotspots, or areas facing environmental crisis. These journeys often combine witnessing, reverence, and the desire to protect our planet. Planetary pilgrimage also extends beyond Earth: astronauts’ journeys and space exploration evoke the Overview Effect, profound human awe, offering a form of pilgrimage that contemplates the cosmos and our place within it.
Populist Pilgrimage
Sometimes, pilgrimages arise spontaneously from collective grief, admiration, or historical memory. These grassroots journeys are not institutionally designated but emerge organically. They include trips to roadside memorials, celebrity death sites, locations of tragedy or heroism, and vernacular shrines created to honor people or events.
- 1. Christian persecution in Sub Saharan Africa, ServAfrica, August 12, 2025, https://servafrica.org/christian-persecution-in-sub-saharan-africa/ ↩︎
- 2. I study Christian terms such as “altar call” as an outsider to Christianity, studying these practices with academic distance, meaning I approach them objectively, without personal religious commitment, and analyze them within historical, cultural, and sociological frames. ↩︎