Pilgrimage to Fátima and Santiago after COVID: Dis/connection in the post-digital age

Abstract

This paper reports on a practice-centered study focusing on pilgrimage to explore mobile and digital media dis/connectivity in the context of a particular configuration of personal mobility. Pilgrimage is a practice bringing together people motivated by religion, tourism, leisure, or self-development, in what have been termed “post-secular” forms of pilgrimage and tourism. In 2020 and 2021, restrictions on individual mobility were imposed to contain the spread of the COVID-19 virus. This exploratory study consisted of interviews with 13 pilgrims in Portugal, who went on pilgrimage to Fátima or Santiago de Compostela in 2021. We argue that dis/connection by pilgrims is evidence of a post-digital moment. Our analysis shows how pilgrims maintain an ambivalent relationship with mobile media in light of this experience which limits their access to habitual devices, people, and digital services, while opening up for the use of others that facilitate the mobility and the spiritual, affective, and sensorial experience as a pilgrim. However, digital and mobile media are deeply entangled in pilgrims’ relationships with space, time, and others—and thus disconnection is partial and transitional. Moreover, dis/connection is embodied in pilgriming—for example, in how they choose the mobile media considering the weight and energy, and place it on the body, at the same time that mobile media can also afford disembodiment to the experience of pilgrimage—by alleviating the physical pain of walking, for example. Pilgrims also use the media in ways that blur the distinctions between digital and non-digital in the ways they invest meanings in their practices.

Introduction

Every year, millions of people from different religions embark on journeys to spiritual or religious places. Christian pilgrims choose to walk for days on end in a world where everything is accelerated. While it is a practice from time immemorial, pilgrimage routes today increasingly serve as a form of spiritual path or retreat for an individual's spiritual growth, and they are also becoming popular with hiking and cycling enthusiasts and organized tour groups. This “post-secular” pilgrimage brings together people motivated by religion, tourism, leisure, or self-development (Nilsson, 2018).

Relative freedom of movement is a given in many parts of the world; in Europe, where this study is based, borders have been dematerialized as the Schengen Agreement has progressed since the 1990s. But in mid-March 2020, most of the countries declared an emergency state and imposed restrictions on individual mobility—“social distancing” was a necessary measure to contain the propagation of the Sars-CoV-2 virus. Individuals had to be confined as much as possible to their homes—not only for working or schooling but also for personal time and (most of) their leisure. Later, the World Health Organization (WHO) emphasized that physical distancing should not mean social isolation—social connection should be maintained through digital communication technologies (Sørensen et al., 2021), in unprecedented hyperconnectivity.

Pilgrimage has traditionally been studied in anthropology, theology, geography, and, increasingly, tourism, disciplines that emphasize the relationship to religion and/or to space. This paper takes a media and communications approach to pilgrimage that foregrounds dis/connectivity as a crucial aspect of the experience. We ask: what is the role of mobile media dis/connectivity in the context of pilgrimage? Theoretically, we first look at hyperconnection and the post-digital as conditions of our time; disconnection in relation to space and place; and contemporary pilgrimage as post-secular tourism. The exploratory study consisted of interviews with 13 pilgrims in Portugal, including traditional as well as “post-secular” pilgrims. The study reveals how COVID-19 restrictions led to an intensification of the use of mobile media; that mobile media are deeply embedded in the experience of pilgrimage; and that disconnection is felt as part of the pilgrim ethos, but framed and enacted in different ways. We argue that these pilgrimage practices are part of a post-digital society, whereby disconnection is an embodied experience of controlled disconnection whereby digital connectivity is reinforced.

Hyperconnected society

Digital media's pervasiveness can be detected in “the increasing ubiquity, the embeddedness of and reliance on digital software-based media in people's everyday life” (Mollen & Dhaenens, 2018, p. 49). The heightened connectivity is entangled in our everyday life through routines, discourses, and imaginaries (Syvertsen, 2020). Digital media create a constant flow of solicitations for one's attention, which constitute distractions; and their “stickiness,” as part of their model, is experienced as intrusive (Syvertsen, 2020). At a more fundamental level, as mediatization theory holds, “our societies are increasingly saturated by digital media and their infrastructures, which have become constitutive for the social worlds in which we live” (Hepp, 2020, p. 1411).

Under the pandemic containment, hyperconnection was further accentuated, as working, socializing, or schooling were performed from home, through digital media, in unprecedented conditions. People in different parts of the world, when going into lockdown, reported intensifying their use of certain digital services, as well as discovering new ones (such as the notorious Zoom), and, in turn, abandoning others (Treré, 2021). Overall, the use of digital media increased, and some forms of contact—such as videocalls—were preferred by some for affording greater social connection at times when physical co-presence was advised against (Nguyen et al., 2021). To some extent, hyperconnection became “over-connection,” as Treré (2021) calls it. A study with 6,192 children aged 10–18 years (and their parent) in 11 countries in Europe, between June and August 2020, found that 77% of the children felt they spent too much time using the internet or digital devices; and that 48% felt an increase of this feeling of “online overuse” during the lockdown period (Lobe et al., 2021). Thirty-four percent reported that they tried, without success, to spend less time on the internet.

Studies from Norway (Ytre-Arne & Moe, 2021) and Australia (Mannell & Meese, 2022) showed how people tried to manage the information overflow in the early days of lockdown. These studies provide evidence for the effort that is required of the individuals “to display and adopt ever more complex and differentiated ways of handling and managing their engagement with media” (Mollen & Dhaenens, 2018, p. 49). To Jansson and Adams (2021), the effort required to disconnect from the digital is encapsulated in the term “disentanglement”; whereas Kuntsman and Miyake (2019) include different dimensions in their notion of “digital disengagement,” as a “conscious decision to withdraw – physically, emotionally, socially and so on” (p. 906) from specific services or devices. In light of this omnipresence of the digital, there is a state-of-the-art consensus about dis/connection as a continuum, and situated practice (Ytre-Arne & Moe, 2021).

A section of disconnection studies focuses on unpacking the dominant, neoliberal discourse of disconnection for personal gains of increased wellbeing through practices such as digital detox, digital minimalism, or mindful connection (Moe & Madsen, 2021; Syvertsen, 2020). Another strand is sensitive to the inequalities to disconnect in the first place, by acknowledging the forms of unpaid labor and unequal distribution of skills and conditions among society to perform it (Fast, 2021; Nguyen et al., 2022; Syvertsen, 2020).

Under the notion of “post-digital,” other scholarship, from a critical and sociological perspective, posits that it is impossible to be outside the digital as it is all-encompassing, and digitalization sustains even the most physical processes (Cramer, 2015). While the “post-digital” refers to “sentiments of disenchantment and scepticism” (p. 19) towards digital technology, which help to explain a cultural preference for vintage and less-than-perfect aesthetic forms, it does not imply the disappearance of forms existing before the digital, such as the analogue. Rather, distinctions between digital and non-digital are challenged under new articulations between them (Fast, 2021; Thorén et al., 2019).

Dis/connect on the move

In the growing literature on the phenomenon, considerable attention has been devoted to how disconnection plays out in relation to temporality, and also spatiality. The literature we review in this section looks at activities directly related to disconnection, at nature tourism, and at active leisure or practice-based activities, but also at migration. It seems to converge on the conclusion that individuals moving in space manage their connectivity through various tactics to remain in contact with, while selectively detaching from, the point of departure, the familiar, or the everyday.

Digital detox camps and retreats (Fish, 2017; Sutton, 2017; Syvertsen, 2020; Hesselberth in Jansson & Adams, 2021) have been studied for how these locations and the activities promoted in them promise that disconnection is necessary and sufficient to distance people from the pressures of everyday life, and ultimately attain self-discovery and “reconnection” with authentic life. They are built on “careful attention to context (nature), embodiment (play), and consumption (technology and food)” (Fish, 2017, p. 360), so as to recalibrate individuals for self-regulation of digital media through more mindful usage.

Moreover, “digital-free tourism” (Cai et al., 2020)—that is, tourism in locations with non-existent or poor connection due to being remote or purposeful blocking of the signal—is on the rise. Nature tourism marketing is, in fact, contributing to a social norm in formation, emphasizing that people should use the time in these locations to disconnect, and in turn to engage with family, friends, and local people (Schwarzenegger & Lohmeier, 2021). A few urban locations are also seeking differentiation in the competitive touristic market through campaigns to incentivize visiting a city without digital photography and social media—such as Unhashtag Vienna—creating an atmosphere of authenticity and nostalgia sold as hipsterism (Jorge & Pedroni, 2021). Digital media appear as an obstacle to be removed if one seeks a more engaged experience with the environment, the self, and the social, but anxiety and boredom can appear when people do not have capable substitutes for the functions needed for travel (navigation, etc.) or companionship (Cai et al., 2020).

In active tourism, this void of the digital is not prevalent, as the body is put to work. Studies with travelers or sporters on the move have unveiled their desires to escape and disengage from busy—“industrial and artificial” (Rosenberg, 2019, p. 123)—lives and environments, “radically disrupting one's temporal and spatial engagement with social and technological life” (Ferreira & Lampinen, 2021, p. 197). Overall, their strategies combine refraining from the use of digital media as the focus of their use of time, with resorting to mobile and digital devices for safety, organization, and contact. This has been found among backpackers (Rosenberg, 2019), campers (Dickinson et al., 2016), solo travelers (Cai et al., 2020; Tosoni & Turrini, 2018), or long-term bikers (Ferreira & Lampinen, 2021). Tosoni and Turrini (2018) refer to this as “controlled disconnection,” which is deemed a condition of engaging with the place, the present moment, and those co-present (Dickinson et al., 2016; Li et al., 2018). They must negotiate dis/connectivity with friends, family, or co-workers, and also with fellow travelers (Dickinson et al., 2016; Rosenberg, 2019). These forms of travel also pose issues regarding the materiality of connectivity—that is, the volume and weight of the devices as well as connected locations, as a body that carries a receptor moves through a map of connectivity.

Dis/connecting while on the move has, to a lesser extent, been researched in relation to other parts of social life. Dhoest (2020) offers a contribution in relation to migration, with a study on gay refugees in Belgium who reported how they relied on mobile media and the internet to seek information and contact people and services that they needed to deal with bureaucracy, to secure employment, and to form relationships; as well as their tactics to detach themselves from homophobic contexts back home or from compatriots migrating to the same host country. Dhoest's study demonstrates how disconnection is not just imposed but also sought by individuals, and that physical distance may be overcome with digital connection, but may also be a way to enforce voluntary seclusion.

Post-secular pilgrimage

As one of the best-known cultural and religious phenomena, pilgrimage can be defined as a journey inspired by religious motives—externally to a holy site, and internally for spiritual purposes (Collins-Kreiner, 2010). In the western tradition, developed within the Roman Catholic Church, pilgrimage corresponds to peregrination, comprehending journeys to religious places, with shrines, relics, and icons. It tends to be undertaken as an act with some degree of effort, from sacrifice (Egan, 2010) to “penance, reverence, […] petition” (Maddrell & della Dora, 2013, p. 1108), or thankfulness. Fátima is associated with this kind of popular religiosity (Vilaça, 2010). Therefore, the journey is significant “as [a] physical experience, and as hiatus or transitional time-space between the everyday and the place-temporality of the ‘set-apart’ ” (Maddrell & della Dora, 2013, p. 1116). This amounts to the “liminality” that anthropologists Turner and Turner (1978/2011) have used to define the nonmaterial aspects of ritual experience (as cited in Maddrell & della Dora, 2013, p. 1107).

The communitas element is part of this liminality, as social differences between fellow pilgrims dissolve or seem to be suspended. Santiago de Compostela is known for “inter-subjective experiences, spaces of being and sharing life-experiences” (Nilsson & Tesfahuney, 2018, p. 168). In brief, the religious feeling of pilgrimage is attained through “embodied, emotional-affective, sensory, and aesthetic experience of landscape, individual contemplation, collective worship, and fellowship” (Maddrell & della Dora, 2013, p. 1123).

This can be augmented by digital media; for instance, in the form of blogs, groups, or virtual pilgrimage (Maddrell & della Dora, 2013) that support preparation for the experience, but also in the sharing of the experience through social media, as a form of “expressive release,” sense-making, and community affirmation. Caidi et al. found that “holy selfies” played a significant role in the context of Islamic pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca, after the Saudi authorities lessened restrictions on the use of camera phones, even amid social polarization and against recommendations of tour operators to leave “technologies such as smartphones at home so as to truly detach from the world and to achieve greater spiritual and mental calm” (2018, p. 9).

As something outside everyday life, pilgrimage offers opportunities for transformation. Through the embodied practice, spiritual mobility is also expected to occur before the return to the everyday. The spirituality practices of pilgrimage (Nilsson, 2018; Ross, as cited in Turner & Turner, 1978/2011) constitute a form of post-secular tourism, which “(re)construct[s] pilgrimage places in novel ways, neither sacral nor secular, but rather a hybrid or combination of both – spaces that are neither explicitly modern/secular nor traditional/sacred” (Nilsson & Tesfahuney, 2018, p. 172). Santiago de Compostela is “now a sacred space mostly for individual spirituality rather than organized religion” (Nilsson, 2018, p. 22). Many pilgrims were motivated to take a break from a stressful life, to have “ ‘time to think’, ‘have time for myself’, ‘to prove that I can endure things’ ” (p. 29). Personal and individual motivations also included seeking silence, revelation, or clarity about their lives. This aligns with a decreasing interest in religion, and, in contrast, a growing interest in spirituality, meditation, and holistic wellness, which can also be found among movements such as “digital detox” (Hesselberth in Jansson & Adams, 2021; Syvertsen, 2020).

Methods

This practice-centered study focused on pilgrimage to seek to understand dis/connection in the context of a particular configuration of personal mobility that is often invested as a personal and spiritual journey. The practice was the focus, rather than disconnection practices being at the center (Moe & Madsen, 2021). This research was undertaken in the denouement of pandemic restrictions on mobility and personal contact, to explore the tensions between the resulting hyperconnectedness and experiences of outdoor and active leisure.

The study focused on the pilgrimage practices to Christian Iberian (i.e., southwestern Europe) centers, in Fátima (central Portugal) and Santiago de Compostela (Galicia, north-western Spain). While Santiago is a site of pilgrimage all year round and, since becoming a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985, has been promoted by tourism institutions (Vilaça, 2010), pilgrimage to Fátima centers on biannual events, preceding May 13 and October 13, connected to Marian apparitions to three young shepherds in the early 20th century. While both sites have been the endpoint of Christian pilgrimage, the Camino de Santiago is an international network of pilgrim routes dating back to medieval times (Nilsson & Tesfahuney, 2018) mostly from Spain, France, and Portugal; whereas Fátima has fewer established routes, and pilgrimage there is practiced mostly in Portuguese continental territory, and usually departs from the hometown to the sanctuary, though it attracts Catholics from many parts of the world. In 2019, Santiago received above 350,000 certified pilgrims (certified to have walked at least 100 km or travelled at least 200 km by horse or bicycle; “Oficina del Peregrino”, 2020), and Fátima received about 650,000 registered pilgrims, 20% of whom were international pilgrims (individuals registered in groups with the regional parishes; Santuário de Fátima, 2020).

In 2020 and 2021, to contain the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, Portugal and Spain, like many other countries, imposed restrictions on mobility, within the country and across borders (Portugal has a land border with Spain which was restricted for the first time since the implementation of Schengen in 1995), and also on hospitality—accommodation and restaurants/cafés—from mid-March to early May 2020, and between November 2020 and April 2021. The Fátima sanctuary was also affected by regulations limiting the number of people at events, which affected biannual celebrations.

The study was qualitative and exploratory, aimed at understanding dis/connectivity in the context of the social practice of pilgrimage, and concentrated on unpacking the personal meanings associated with the experience of pilgrimage in a crisis context. We aimed to recruit participants who had performed pilgrimage in 2021, and recruited through two Facebook groups dedicated to both “Caminos” (paths), with over 7,000 followers in the case of Fátima, and above 50,000 in the case of Santiago, with a message posted in Portuguese and English stating that interviews could be conducted in Portuguese, English, or Spanish. Individuals agreed, using a consent form, that their participation would be anonymized (in identifying quotes, we use F/M to indicate their gender, followed by their age, and S/F to indicate whether they did the 2021 pilgrimage to Santiago or Fátima), and with guarantees of voluntary participation and possibility to withdraw at any moment. The interviews were conducted in May and June 2021 through video calls (Zoom, Google Meet, Messenger) or by phone (one case), and they lasted for an average of an hour; in one of the interviews two participants took part, who had done the pilgrimage together. We successfully interviewed eight female and five male pilgrims – a few more people responded to the call for participants but did not follow through to an interview. The ages of the interviewees ranged from 26 to 66 years; 6 people did the pilgrimage to Fátima, and 7 to Santiago. As we felt that there was enough to explore, we did not promote further calls for participants.

The interview covered the experience of pilgrimage in 2021, broad relationship with communication technologies, the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic, the management of technologies during the pilgrimage of 2021 and general disconnective practices, and values and perceptions towards digital technologies. Socioeconomic characterization included gender, age, occupation, and migration status. The interviews did not focus on the participants’ relationship with religion; moreover, the author and interviewer, being Portuguese and knowledgeable about Catholic religion, maintained a neutral and open conversation during the interview. If interviewees would not reveal personal details (e.g., just mentioned that they went on pilgrimage to thank the saint for something), these were not asked further. Interviews were transcribed from the audio portions of each video or phone call.

We performed a thematic analysis (Strauss & Corbin, 1998), whereby the deep reading of the interviews generated four salient themes: the personal significance of pilgrimage; COVID-19 as disruption; the embeddedness of the digital in the experience of pilgrimage; and dis/connection tactics and meanings. These themes were related to the literature on post-secular pilgrimage, hyperconnectivity and the post-digital, and mobile media connectivity and disconnection. Throughout, and taken together, these themes allow us to bring out the ways in which dis/connection from mobile and digital media are partial and transitional, on the one hand; and, on the other, while disconnection is embodied by the pilgrim, mobile media can also disembody them.

Results

An inner travel: suffering or enjoying

We found two distinct types among the participants. One was a more traditionally religious type, which included interviewees in their late 40s to 60s. They took part in pilgrimage or even led groups of pilgrims, along asphalt roads, and performed pilgrimage cyclically, as a ritual, annually or biannually to Fátima. These groups were organized in their local communities or via the parishes. They showed a notion of sacrifice in relation to doing the pilgrimage, and they focused on the religious aspects (praying as they walk), or on gratitude (a 48-year-old male participant had cancer a few years before and had done the pilgrimage annually since recovering). A 58-year-old female participant said she started the practice 29 years previously because of a promise and then started going as a sign of gratitude; she gets “tired feet” but “a full heart” and a “clear head.” During those years, she has seen groups of “300, 400, 100, 40, 50” pilgrims.

A second type, the post-secular, was composed of respondents in their 20s to 40s, who comprised most of our respondents. They had done the pilgrimage alone or in small groups, for the first time in 2021 or in episodical iterations. In this group there was a prevalence of the notion of “self-discovery” (F41S) and self-growth during the pilgrimage, which they face as a goal to attain, a challenge to themselves. A 26-year-old interviewee told us that he pilgrimed to Santiago alone because “I needed those days to set my ideas straight and I needed that time for myself.” In the case of Fátima, this is still combined with religious motivation, but less so in the case of Santiago, where more touristic motivations are also present, such as nature and active tourism as well as the historical aspects, as one participant expresses:

I thought “April is gonna have good weather, for the landscape. It's going to be green, flowers”. […] [F]or me it was spiritual without being religious. […] I liked all the things I saw, the churches, beautiful small chapels in the villages. So it was amazing actually, but yeah, I did it more for the spiritual and physical. […] Now, thanks to this Camino, I am more connected to life, more… to these basics [such as a glass of water]. (M32S)

The participants in this group preferred trails and to walk for lesser distances every day, to make it more sustainable—that is, less of a sacrifice. Spirituality arose from contact with nature and silence (e.g., “the spiritual part, I think that just the fact that we are so connected with nature we enter this almost meditative state”, F33S). They went alone, in pairs, or in small groups, organized by themselves. Usually, they took around 5 to 6 days, but one female and one male participants (each of them on their own) did the pilgrimage for 20 and 30 days, respectively, with a daily average of 35 km. Among this post-secular group, gender differences emerged: women sought a sense of self-sufficiency and mindfulness to be attained through self-discovery; liminality, especially in the case of mothers, was derived from carving out a special moment to be away from their obligations during life at home. For male interviewees (e.g., M26S, M28S), there was a valorization of the communitas element: they mentioned more encounters with hermits or experienced pilgrims that touched them deeply—even at a time of more deserted “Caminos” (as we will explore).

Some pilgrims were in-between the two profiles—one willingly rearticulated religious and touristic motivations; the other negotiated her motivations with her home context. The 48-year-old man who since surviving a serious illness had been going annually to Fátima alone, walking along the trails, said: “I usually do it in February or March, because the nature is more beautiful then. […] It's an act of faith, to begin with, but I also enjoy it. […] And walking 148 km is also a physical trial.” He added he would not want to be seen as a “fanatic pilgrim walking […] along the national road [N1] with a stick, yellow vests and sleeping in tents,” “although I do pray in the morning and evening” during the pilgrimage. On his first pilgrimage, he did not tell others what he was doing because he was afraid of being judged against such a “traditional” pilgrim idea, and started doing Instagram Lives and posts with “pictures of interesting things, from nature or a nice house, along the way”; when people asked, he replied he was pilgriming and thought he converted people's ideas about what pilgrimage can be. Another interviewee, a 36-year-old woman from a village in the strongly religious north of Portugal, said she did the pilgrimage to Fátima (alone but meant to be with a friend), using the rural paths, in return for a request to the saint. Her testimony indicated that she felt disconnected, rather than her disconnecting from her home context.

I was a bit frustrated because I thought “I should have suffered, this was a promise, I should be in pain because I see everyone else suffering and crying”, and I would share [Instagram] Stories and people would say “oh are you in peregrination? It looks like you’re on a trip, well, for fun”.

Judgments regarding what pilgrims share on social media also appeared among the participants. Some judged other pilgrims for sharing “too much” in the Facebook group, if they share before, on the go, and upon arrival: “selfies,” “it's not the kind of information I’m looking for” (M32S); “it's just a bit narcissistic” (F41S).

The communitas element seemed to be appreciated by the religious pilgrims and by men in the post-secular group. This occurred both regarding the appreciation of groups and meeting other pilgrims on the path, and on Facebook groups before, during, and after the pilgrimage. This was the case for the 66-year-old man who did the pilgrimage biannually to Fátima, and the 27-year-old man who walked to Santiago on his own. The women in the younger group leaned towards posting about the pilgrimage at the end of the day or the end of the pilgrimage, with a reflection on the (spiritual) experience, in their personal profiles on either Instagram or Facebook—as an expressive release (Caidi et al., 2018).

Disruptions

Reporting on the time before embarking on the pilgrimage in 2021, our urban respondents, unlike those living in villas or smaller villages, mostly attested to the hyperconnection during lockdowns. “With the pandemic, as everyone else, […] I started using social media and all these virtual communication media a lot more […] so I would not be isolated and could have a more or less socially active and interesting life,” a 41-year-old woman who walked to Santiago told us. They talked about how videocalls, which many of them had not used before, became normalized (Treré, 2021); or about spending time on gaming and streaming. One participant mentioned keeping several “virtual chats [sic] with colleagues, with friends” (M48F). Some of the interviewees had even taken up trekking or hiking during the pandemic (e.g., F40F, M48F), or purposely did those activities to practice for the pilgrim journey. The 33-year-old female pilgrim who went alone from Lisbon to Santiago told us that during the pandemic restrictions, walking “was an outlet” for her: “I was getting ready for the pilgrimage before I knew it.” She was also the only interviewee who told us she did social media and series detoxes, and that she used screen time/wellbeing functions.

Besides the type of residence, feelings of being confined at home were also different according to their job situation: while some were working from home, others, for instance a 36-year-old woman working in a factory, kept going to work. For a 27-year-old barman who was on lay-off and a female 41-year-old tourist guide, disruptions to work meant that they could put into practice old plans to take the Camino route (for 27 and 10 days), respectively, as usually their annual work leaves would not allow for it.

However, the pandemic affected the freedom to conduct the pilgrimage itself. Restrictions on mobility imposed by authorities to contain the COVID-19 pandemic delayed plans to do the pilgrimage in 2020 to the following year (M26S), or plans were adjusted around the changes (F40F and F35F did it on weekends throughout autumn 2020 and spring 2021).

When walking the paths, sanitary restrictions meant that pilgrims who wanted to embark on the journey had to coordinate on the go. For example, a 32-year-old male pilgrim started the Camino towards Santiago at a time when borders were still closed, in the hope that they would be open by the time he arrived at the Portuguese border with Spain. In this context, most participants saw the Facebook group as particularly useful to search for information and to have the community help with plans and advice (e.g., F33S said she hardly ever used Facebook but went onto the group’s page to see what people were saying about the lodges, and posted to ask for help). Several of them reported that lodges and accommodation were still largely affected by restrictions, or were out of business. For a 26-year-old pilgrim, this meant he had to walk in one day the correspondent to what was scheduled for two days on the route to Santiago, because no lodging was available in a region in Portugal, which ultimately resulted in greater pain and less enjoyment of the natural landscapes.

During the pilgrimages more specifically, the disruptions brought about by COVID-19 illuminated expectations about the experience of pilgrimage. For the religious group, the ritualistic element was lost—in 2020 they were not able to do the routes annually or biannually. A 58-year-old female pilgrim to Fátima had been repeating the path for 29 years but could not perpetuate that ritual in 2020; she kept the communitas alive by creating a “pilgrim group” on WhatsApp, “where we sometimes do videocalls, it's just these little squares there.”

When on the ground, the communitas element was also absent—as mentioned, this was missed the most by male participants. All the interviewees described deserted paths in the spring of 2021, with barely anyone at the hostels. A 26-year-old man who pilgrimed to Santiago told us: “I walked for almost 70 km without finding anyone.” For the 58-year-old female pilgrim to Fátima, it was “a very sad path this year” (i.e., 2021). But for a 41-year-old tourist guide who fulfilled a 20-year-old dream to walk to Santiago, these times meant that the path was less touristic: “it is now as I wanted it 20 years ago, with time to think, contemplate, be alone.” For this interviewee, the Camino “over the last 7 years has become a fad, it is tourism more than anything else.” This quote shows how the post-secular pilgrimage seeks a romantic, anti-tourist scenario at the same time. This interviewee also said she meant to write postcards to her friends, but post offices were hard to use, so she wrote emails to them—with a meaningful, one-directional spirit.

On arrival at the sanctuaries, a deserted scenario was also found to be odd. The 26-year-old Santiago pilgrim said it “was very strange” to find the city with barely any pilgrims, and no social (nor academic) life.

The disruptions caused by the pandemic represented constraints for some, and opportunities for other pilgrims. The experience of pilgrimage was augmented by digital media: by searching for information and engaging with the community online before, during, and after the journey via Facebook or WhatsApp groups.

Mediated paths

The participants selected the devices to bring with—and on—them considering weight and affordances. All described the use of the smartphone as the most multifunctional compared to its minimal weight (Lomborg, 2015)—like a technological army knife. All mentioned using a smartphone to confirm accommodation on the go or to contact home, and also for its function as a camera. As one pilgrim put it, exaggerating how light the phone is,

I was going frugal, I didn't bring a camera and the cell phone would be my flashlight, it would be my phone, it would be my camera and it has weight, it's not 1 gram, it counts a lot in the backpack. […] These technologies allowed me to have all the information concentrated in a small machine that weighs half a gram instead of carrying 3 or 4 books with me. (F41S)

As expected, the phone represented a guarantee for safety, especially to those pilgriming alone and to women, some of whom were also travelling alone (Paasonen, 2021, p. 119). Lone pilgrims spoke of their concern about keeping the phone powered in case of emergency:

[W]hen I get to the mountain [before Fátima], I’m always careful […] there are parts where there is weak service, but you also have to be careful to have battery on your phone, […] in case you need to call the emergency. (M48F)

As for women's concerns, a 41-year-old female interviewee said: “We, women, especially, you always have that fear”; so, she told us: “my phone was always at reach, of course, in my back pocket, but it wouldn't leave there often” (I will focus on the latter part below). Pilgrims mentioned that there were few places where there was no mobile service: “there was signal along all of the way, I think. I got surprised. Like, you, you never get lost. It was rare that I didn't have internet” (M32S).

The experience of place and pilgrimage seemed inextricable from mobile media in several dimensions. The first of those was micro-coordination and personal safety during the pilgrimage, for which smartphones (F58F would call other people in the group as they spread out with different paces) and Google Maps (e.g., for M26S to find his way to lodges) appear as central. But interviewees also mentioned other devices, such as smartwatches. The 48-year-old, a software engineer, said he was using a new smartwatch in 2021: “it really helps, […] it tells me how long I still have to walk, […] my calories, my pulse,” and the weather forecast. This usage also includes the use of apps to monitor distances and manage their effort: several participants mentioned using Strava on their smartphones.

Mobile media were also used for navigation: since there are parts of the route to Fátima that are not well signposted on the ground, pilgrims use an app, developed by the community, to make sure they do not get the routes wrong, which would cost them extra kilometers that their legs cannot afford to walk. Pilgrims to Santiago mentioned using Ninja.

Furthermore, mobile media can work to augment the aesthetic and sensorial experience of pilgrimage (Maddrell & della Dora, 2013): a 32-year-old male participant said he listened to history podcasts related to the places he was passing through on the way to Santiago: “When I arrived at some city, I went to listen to a podcast about that city.” These media were also put to service for the narrativization of the experience to non-pilgrims, through photography with the smartphone or with other devices and apps, such as Go Pro or “a stabilizer” (M32S). Digital media might also provide the imaginary according to which place is experienced (Syvertsen, 2020): the 48-year-old pilgrim said he saw a landscape on the way to Fátima that reminded him of Windows classic wallpaper—“that little green mound with that blue sky”—and he took a picture on the way, which he then shared on Instagram using geolocation, to good engagement.

Importantly, mobile media afforded a distraction from the hard parts of pilgrimages, which worked to disembody the pilgrim. This was mentioned by the most intensive pilgrim in the sample, a 27-year-old who walked for 30 days from Lisbon to Finisterra, who listened to music to overcome the feeling of “loneliness” and also the physical pain; and by the 32-year-old male participant who listened to podcasts to take away the pain in his feet. The 48-year-old pilgrim also said his “connected watch” helped “in those stressful moments, let's say, a steep climb,” to know how far he was from the end of the journey; however, he revealed that he would pray “more when I am in pain.” Using the smartphone was also associated with rest or “downtime” (Tosoni & Turrini, 2018, p. 295), both in breaks during the day, and at the lodge or hotel: in the evening (F33S), “after a bath and dinner” (M48F); “the body is tired, I would be waiting for a few hours to have dinner, and sometimes start using the phone” (F58F).

Disconnecting as pilgrim ethos

The pilgrim ethos is consonant with limiting connectivity, as an embodied tactics to manage energy, weight, breathing, and attention, which can intensify the experience of pilgrimage. As mentioned, the management of connectivity starts with practical decisions about weight vis-à-vis the functions of devices, as F41S's “frugal” quote alluded to. Other practical decisions have to do with managing batteries and data. For many of the pilgrims, the phone battery was not something they even had to worry about because they were not using the device while walking: “the battery will only drain if you’re using the phone all the time” (F58F); “since I had everything – mobile data, all the apps – off, […] I would get to the end of the day with over 60% battery” (F33S). They were not holding the phones—they were kept “in the back pocket” (F41S), which seemed to reassure this female pilgrim doing the walk alone. Several pilgrims would only connect to mobile data when needed (e.g., M48F).

Pilgrims pre-emptively let others know they were going on the pilgrimage to signal their limited availability. Interestingly, for the religious group, the moment of starting the pilgrimage was done with a Facebook Live of the moment when the local priest blessed the pilgrims (F58F). Most of the interviewees, especially the post-secular pilgrims, said they restricted contact during the pilgrimage to their closer family, reaching out to them via social media or phone calls—which was done in moments of rest, as we saw. A male 26-year-old pilgrim to Santiago told us he “turned off all social networks, Facebook, Instagram,” and just kept WhatsApp to communicate to his “brother, mother and father that everything was fine.”

A 33-year-old woman told us she “deliberately tried to use the phone as least as possible during the Camino. I deactivated all notifications for e-mails, WhatsApp and things like that, and just left on Google Maps, Safari explorer, Booking.com […] and the Ninja app”; she also explained that she stopped syncing for some social media apps but not the specific apps of the Caminos when using mobile data. Crucially, this interviewee demonstrated how there were different levels of skills to disconnect or disconnect partially, and the labor required of the pilgrims to achieve those ends (Fast, 2021; Syvertsen, 2020).

For some of these younger pilgrims, disconnection was a condition to preserve the experience from the outside world: “There was a bunch of people whose messages I wasn't answering. […] I didn't want to listen to negative thoughts or something. So yeah, I didn't answer to some messages, just messages. Just to avoid negativity” (M32S).

This was expressed by others in terms of engaging with the atmosphere (Maddrell & della Dora, 2013) and seeking more authentic experiences (Cai et al., 2020; Dickinson et al., 2016; Ferreira & Lampinen, 2021; Rosenberg, 2019; Tosoni & Turrini, 2018). When walking, the phone distracts from feeling in touch with nature, many interviewees told us; from focusing on the effort demanded of the body.

I want to live that, to observe the pebble stuck in some corner. I want to see people, the step, the breath, the tiredness, the weight of the whole body takes on a dimension that it doesn't have in everyday life, because it's our transport vehicle. (F41S)

Some more realistic pilgrims put this in other terms. The 58-year-old female pilgrim to Fátima said: “on the way there were people walking and holding their phones. Sometimes I would even tell them that they could hit a rock and get hurt”; and the 33-year-old woman who pilgrimed to Santiago said she needed to pay attention, when on the rural paths, for animals such as boars or snakes and, when on the road, for the big trucks. In fact, she linked this idea of focusing on the environment to one of self-sufficiency: “what is the use of a mobile phone” if an animal runs towards her? She would need to run or hide.

Disconnection was not always followed through or did not come without friction, especially for lone pilgrims. While the 41-year-old female pilgrim said she was “grateful” that close people did not respect her request not to call her, the 33-year-old said she started getting questions from friends about the pilgrimage and sent them to Instagram, where she would share Stories to a limited group, as a controlled “broadcast.”

Discussion and conclusions

This study revealed how pilgrims maintain an ambivalent relationship with mobile media, limiting their access to habitual devices and services, while opening for others that facilitate the mobility, and control social contacts—with the communitas as well as a close social circle and ordinary society that they seek or avoid. Disengaging from media opens space for the visual, auditory, and tactile experiences of pilgriming (Maddrell & della Dora, 2013), but the experience itself of pilgrimage is inextricable from mobile and digital media—for utilitarian affordances such as navigation, safety, and micro-coordination, as well as in their symbolic colonization of the frames and the imaginaries of the routes. Our participants revealed how COVID-19 accentuated the fact that digital and particularly mobile media are entangled in experiences of mobility for spirituality and self-transformation that are partly founded on disengagement from the everyday. Disconnection in the context of pilgrimage is, therefore, partial and transitional, whereby digital and mobile media are reaffirmed as valuable and inescapable in how they affect our relationship with space, time, and others. This also means that mobile media pose challenges to the liminality that pilgrimage could ever afford.

This empirical study adds to the existing literature on disconnection (Fish, 2017), as well as on pilgrimage (Caidi et al., 2018; Maddrell & della Dora, 2013; Nilsson, 2018), by highlighting how dis/connection is embodied in pilgriming; but also how mobile media afford disembodiment to the experience of pilgrimage. On the one hand, dis/connection in the context of pilgrimage is enacted through the body in movement: firstly, by the material considerations—weight and energy—of devices in relation to mobility in space; and, secondly, in relation to the body (e.g., carrying the phone in the back pocket). Furthermore, pilgrimage requires the effort of the body to move through space; interviewees did not mention anxiety or boredom as in digital-free tourism (Cai et al., 2020), as they were devoted to something that would aggrandize them. Lastly, for some of the pilgrims, disengaging from media was a requirement for focus that would secure the body's integrity. However entangled in mobile media, the experience of partial disconnection through pilgrimage is lived through the bodily relationship with media as objects, and within a particular context of space and time. On the other hand, mobile media also work to disembody the pilgrim, whether by attuning the attention to music or podcasts instead of physical pain, or by heightening physical rest during down time (Tosoni & Turrini, 2018). This interchange speaks of the different temporalities with which the use, and non-use, of media are associated, in relation to the body and the modes of attention.

The transitionality and embodiment/disembodiment duality of the dis/connection practiced by pilgrims are evidence of a post-digital moment (Cramer, 2015): post-secular pilgrims, especially, express a stance of disenchantment towards digital media, or the idea of not being in control over them. Moreover, distinctions between digital and non-digital are blurred in the way pilgrims invest meaning in their uses. We can read as post-digital some practices our interviewees reported such as sending an email with the spirit of a postcard or using Instagram to avoid more communication via WhatsApp.

Based on our data, differences among the interviewees and the way they seek pilgrimage as a form of alternative tourism seemed more related to generation, type of residence, and occupation. Gender differences that we could detect also seem to point to a greater valorization of pilgrimage as self-transformation work among women (Fast, 2021). As an exploratory study, it lacked detailed information about participants’ prior or ulterior media use that should be investigated in future studies, which should also seek further socio-demographic characterization to provide deeper insight into the distinctions and inequalities at play in this phenomenon. More ethnographic research on dis/connection and tourism is also needed, to explore more deeply the richness of the experiences as they occur. Future research on disconnection and religion might enquire further into religious institutions’ policies concerning digital media (e.g., prohibition of taking pictures of holy sites); and emerging disconnection practices mimicking religion (e.g., fasting or Sunday/Sabbath offline).