Abstract
Kinetic rituals such as knee-walking, bending, and crawling play a crucial role in shaping the relationship between immanence and transcendence in public religious spaces. This study examines how these embodied devotional acts transform architectural environments into dynamic arenas where religious and spatial elements converge, rendering the divine experientially present. Focusing on the physicality of ritual movement, it explores how sacredness is enacted and inscribed upon both the pilgrim’s body and the spatial landscape. Drawing on multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork at major pilgrimage destinations—including the Tomb of Mary in Jerusalem, the Milk Grotto in Bethlehem, the Scala Sancta in Rome, the Jasna Góra Monastery in Poland, the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City, the Sanctuary of Fátima in Portugal, and the Santuario Madonna di Pinè in Italy—the study uses participant observation, interviews, and spatial analysis to investigate the embodied nature of devotion. While anthropologists have explored ritual embodiment, liminality, and the materiality of sacred space, this article advances the theoretical understanding of how kinetic rituals collapse distinctions between divine and human realms by making transcendence materially and socially manifest. The analysis identifies four interrelated dimensions: mimesis, where pilgrim movements reenact sacred narratives; repetition, which inscribes divine presence onto the body; temporal blending, where ritual action merges past, present, and sacred time; and territoriality, which marks and sacralizes landscapes within geopolitical contexts. These findings demonstrate how kinetic rituals materially produce divine presence and transform ritual space into liminal zones where the sacred becomes tangible and socially embedded.
Presenters
Nurit StadlerProfessor, Sociology and Anthropology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Yerushalayim, Israel
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
Religious Community and Socialization
KEYWORDS
Embodiment, Mimesis, Rituals, Pilgrimage, Comparative spirituality, Ethnography
