Week 8-Pilgrimage

Understanding the impact of the Hajj: Explaining experiences

of self‐change at a religious mass gathering

  • Hajj can increase commitment to muslim identity

  • Increases positive percption of all groups, including non-Muslims

  • Feelings of group solidarity

  • Hajj made Malcom X move away from Black separatism

  • Examined two variables: enhanced Muslim identification and more positive attitudes to people from different religions and cultures.

  • Three predictors: positive contact through perceived cooperation w/ other pilgrims, positive and negative emotional experiences, embodiment of Muslim spiritual values

  • Hx: ethnic diversity acts as a mediator between these effects

  • Goal is to apply these findings to other group gatherings

  • Unity through rituals, common dress

    • Seen as threatening by non-Muslims

  • One study used Pakistan’s lottery system to choose a sample

    • 66% of enterees completed Hajj

    • Developed more positive views towards other ethnic groups and non-Muslims

    • More peaceful

    • More progressive views towards female education

    • Commitment to Muslim values

    • Less committed to local customs

  • Multiple studies note this effect, do not identify why

  • Increased positive attitudes to outgroups

    • Idea: positive contact between groups

    • Hajj would need to generalize to non-Muslim experiences

    • Contact w/ outgroup can lead people to realize there isn’t a strict boundary between in/out group

    • Idea: identification with the crowd

  • Enhanced Muslim identification

    • Collective emotional experience

    • Rituals can cause strain, affecting how we view our values

    • No quarrelling during Hajj

    • Peaceful united crowd

  • Social contextual factors can affect identity salience

    • Tangible practices make identity more meaningful

    • Giving support increases identification w/ the crowd

  • Hard to do research on Hajj because it’s closed to non-muslims

  • Research team spoke a variety of languages

  • H1: we expected that each of perceived cooperation, positive experience, exhaustion, perception of a peaceful crowd, and perception of a united crowd would predict both identification with the crowd and giving support.

  • H2: We expected that both identification with the crowd and giving support should predict increased positive attitudes to outgroups and enhanced Muslim identification.

    • Indirect relationship between perceived cooperation and positive views towards outgroups

  • Methods

    • No rewards

    • Survey study

    • Approached ppl in the Grand Mosque

    • Reluctant to participate, 60% agreement in mosque, 70% in plaza

    • Younger participants more likely to participate, some ppl declined because they were illiterate

    • Women more likely to refuse

      • Research assistants were male, 3 of them came w/ their wives

    • n=1194

      • Ended up being n=1176 because of RA error

    • 64.5% male

    • Came from a variety of ages, education, countries, languages

    • Most attended w/ a group

  • Results

    • Social identification w/ crowd + corr w/ all values except exhaustion

    • Exhaustion had a negative correlation w/ positive experience

    • Cooperative experience leads to more positive views towards other groups at the Hajj

    • Both emotion (in the form of positive experience) and Muslim spiritual values embodied in the crowd (in the form of perceptions of unity) predicted more positive attitudes to outgroups via identification with the crowd.

    • Exhaustion did not affect Muslim identification, and peacefulness, unity did via identification w/ the crowd

    • Did not find education level predicted self-change

    • First time did affect identification w/ the crowd

    • Older ppl more likely to show positive outgroup perceptions

    • Crowds can reform identities

    • In the moment nature of this study is both a strength and a weakness

2/24 In-Class

  • Next Tuesday: meeting at University Park Methodist Church

  • Essay doesn’t need to be finished for presentations

    • Slideshows not necessary

  • Pilgrimage: religiously motivated travel, round-trip journey to sites they consider sacred

    • May expand beyond religion to spirituality

    • Pilgrimage is infrequent

  • Phases

    • Separation from everyday life and self

      • Decrease dependencies

      • Fewer material possessions

      • Shift to identity of a pilgrim

    • Liminal- process of the pilgrimage

      • Social roles overthrown

      • Equality

      • Part of the pilgrim community

      • Deprivation from everyday life

      • Often involves walking or physical effort

      • May involve a ritual item

    • Return and reintegrtion

      • Role dissonance: adjusting to identity changes due to pilgrimage

        • People have to adjust to your new identity

      • Ineffable experience

      • Can last months or be permanent

  • Purpose

    • Required religious exercise

    • Atonement (effort to change) or penance

    • Healing

    • Exploration (mixed motivations)

    • Sacralization or adoration

    • Implicit/etic/secular

    • Visiting a holy site is not inherently a pilgrimage

  • Outcomes and mechanisms

    • Risks

      • Disease

      • Crushing

      • Stress

      • Hypo or hyperthermia

    • Psychological mechanisms

      • Identity and belief taking

      • Diversity: exposure to diverse people of the religion

      • Effort justification (also present in hazing)

      • Strong positive emotions

      • Healing pilgrimages: placebo effect

        • Placebo can be blocked by naloxone

  • Examples

    • Muslim Hajj outcomes

      • Positive views of others, peaceful inclinations

      • More progressive views

      • Committed to universal muslim practice

    • Hindu Magh Mla & Kumbh Mala

      • annual festival, but big one happens every 12 yrs

      • Shared identity

      • Feelings of well-being and health

      • Can be seen from space

    • Christian Camino de Santiago

      • Pilgrims’ ways to the shrine of St. Jams in the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela

      • More than 300k/yr

      • Not at a specific time

      • Outcomes

        • Personal ritual

        • Many motivated by a need for clarification

        • More spiritual than religious

        • Experience life as significantly more meaningful

        • Self-transcendence and actualization

  • Concerns

    • Colonial gaze

      • Evolved looking at the primitive

      • Entitlement to a space

    • Environmental impact

      • Infrastructure not built for mass travel

      • Species mortality, increase in roadkill

    • Crowds out other economic activities

    • Commodification of spiritual experience

      • People will make up rituals simply to make money at a spiritual place

    • Transcendent goals and sustainable tourism

  • What’s necessary for something to be a pilgrimage

    • Role of a crowd

    • Difficulty

    • Spcific loction

    • Specific history

    • Symbolic or imaginative journey