The Pilgrim’s Identity in Liquid Modernity

Abstract

The road, journey, wandering are topics known from works of various historical epochs that still appear in social sciences, philosophy and literature. According to Zygmunt Bauman, as humans, we have gone from the times of solid modernity, when we perceived ourselves as “pilgrims” characterized by the concept of identity, to the times of liquid modernity, when we are “tourists” looking for diverse but ephemeral experiences. In this article, I show that the idea of pilgrimage is still valid and allows us to strengthen our identity. I refer to the broad understanding of pilgrimage in the Christian tradition, to the currently observed increase in the popularity of pilgrimages and, above all, to the interpretation of my own experiences of making pilgrimages on the Spanish Camino de Santiago trails. Finally, I characterize the specificity of the pilgrim’s role and the criteria for shaping his identity.

Keywords

• pilgrimage
• identity
• solid and liquid modernity
• roads to Santiago de Compostela