CIP Research Associate, Dr Safet HadžiMuhamedović, has convened with his SOAS colleagues the first online summer school in Anthropology of Travel, Tourism and Pilgrimage.
The coronavirus lockdown raised various questions for the team organising the 2020 SOAS Summer School in Anthropology of Travel, Tourism and Pilgrimage. Previous courses relied on workshops in the Migration Museum, a trip down the Old Way, a medieval pilgrimage route in Sussex, with the British Pilgrimage Trust, Unseen Tours of London, and various other practical components.
The 2020 course, however, had to be significantly remodelled, not only to adapt to online teaching but also to consider the meaning of (im)mobility, (un)homeliness and religion in the time of coronavirus, as well as the pursuit of justice linked to the Black Lives Matter movement. With participants and guest speakers from sixteen different countries, the course offered lectures, visual, musical and writing workshops, debates and after-hours ‘pub’ socials. For example, through a Karl Popper-style debate, the participants considered whether the public statues of persons associated with slave trade must be removed. The course also reflected on various aspects of inter-faith relations, such as shared pilgrimage sites, post-conflict coexistence and the preservation of religiously plural heritage.
For further information about the course, please contact Dr Safet HadžiMuhamedović at sh639@cam.ac.uk.Â