Re-materialising the religious tourism experience: a post-human perspective

Using ethnographic research into Christian Orthodox religious tourists’ performances in Tinos, Greece, this paper traces the complex pathways of human and material entanglement in creating religious experiences. While religions stage material performances by ascribing sign and use value to objects, affect through doing allows for different modes of understanding and performance, in which the material nature plays an essential role. This paper contributes in recognising the importance of materials’ thingness in the religious experience, allowing for alternative performances and expressions of belief. Understanding the way materials can enable or even overshadow the sense of religiousness is important for the successful management of the spatial distribution of objects in religious sites.

© 2020. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.