{"title":"Enchantments of stone: Confronting other-than-human agency in Irish pilgrimage practices","authors":"R. Lash","doi":"10.1177/1469605318762816","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"In contemporary Ireland, mountains, holy wells, and islands attract people from various geographic and religious backgrounds to participate in annual pilgrimages. Scholars and participants continue to debate the historical links of these events to 19th-century turas, “journey” traditions, early medieval penitential liturgies, and even prehistoric veneration of natural phenomena. Drawing from recent participant observation at Croagh Patrick mountain and excavations on Inishark Island, I analyze how modern and medieval pilgrimage practices generated “enchantments” through movements and embodied encounters with stones that materialize both past human action and other-than-human agency. Rather than products of timeless continuity of experience, such enchantments have varied widely across time. Viewing pilgrimage movements and materials in their taskscape settings highlights the articulation between the embodied affects and political and ideological effects of pilgrims’ engagement with stones in particular historic contexts. Questioning simple narratives of continuity, this study demonstrates how a relational approach can enhance analyses of pilgrimage as scenes of social reproduction, ideological controversy, and political contest.","PeriodicalId":46391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Social Archaeology","volume":"18 1","pages":"284 - 305"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6000,"publicationDate":"2018-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1469605318762816","citationCount":"7","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Social Archaeology","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1469605318762816","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ANTHROPOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 7
Abstract
In contemporary Ireland, mountains, holy wells, and islands attract people from various geographic and religious backgrounds to participate in annual pilgrimages. Scholars and participants continue to debate the historical links of these events to 19th-century turas, “journey” traditions, early medieval penitential liturgies, and even prehistoric veneration of natural phenomena. Drawing from recent participant observation at Croagh Patrick mountain and excavations on Inishark Island, I analyze how modern and medieval pilgrimage practices generated “enchantments” through movements and embodied encounters with stones that materialize both past human action and other-than-human agency. Rather than products of timeless continuity of experience, such enchantments have varied widely across time. Viewing pilgrimage movements and materials in their taskscape settings highlights the articulation between the embodied affects and political and ideological effects of pilgrims’ engagement with stones in particular historic contexts. Questioning simple narratives of continuity, this study demonstrates how a relational approach can enhance analyses of pilgrimage as scenes of social reproduction, ideological controversy, and political contest.
期刊介绍:
The Journal of Social Archaeology is a fully peer reviewed international journal that promotes interdisciplinary research focused on social approaches in archaeology, opening up new debates and areas of exploration. It engages with and contributes to theoretical developments from other related disciplines such as feminism, queer theory, postcolonialism, social geography, literary theory, politics, anthropology, cognitive studies and behavioural science. It is explicitly global in outlook with temporal parameters from prehistory to recent periods. As well as promoting innovative social interpretations of the past, it also encourages an exploration of contemporary politics and heritage issues.