Onto emerging ground: Anticlimactic movement on the Camino de Santiago de Compostela

Pilgrimage studies are frequently characterised as involving collective relationships, such as solidarity or contestation regarding discourses and attitudes, rather than travellers encountering "frivolous" things on the road. However, this paper argues that there are some similar performative actions in pilgrims' diverse walking practices on the road to Santiago de Compostela. It traces the manner in which walking movements constitute transformative forces that create a capacity for embodying a "diff erent standpoint". Th is paper broadens the scope of pilgrimage studies to include not only human but also non-human aspects, such as the weather, traffi c lights and the column at the Cathedral at Santiago de Compostela, that infl uence the pilgrims' journeys. Focusing more on materiality of body and place than on spirituality and thoughts in their heads, this theoretical perspective demonstrates that various encounters on the road are shaping today's Camino without the boundary of "ourselves" versus "others". Conforming to this perspective, three modes of a fractal-like deterritorialisation and reterritorialisation seen amongst pilgrims' various feelings are illustrated: going beyond to encompass something indeterminate, disciplined practices infl uenced by their transitive environments, and understandings of their experiences at the end of the journey.