The experience of pilgrims, sacred givenness, and an historic road: An ethnographic exploration of communication along the Way of Saint James (France, Spain)

Since the ninth century, pilgrims have been walking El Camino de Santiago de Compostela, the Way of Saint James of Compostela. Roads from all over Europe have made their way to a venerable place where it is believed James the Apostle was buried. Today pilgrims continue to walk to Santiago de Compostela following the footpaths of those; who, for generations, have gone before. This road is a place constituted by the footprints of generations of pilgrims. It manifests human spirituality in space and time through the act of walking, the practice of charity, and the speech of pilgrims. For many, personal experience of these manifestations of spirituality offers revelation of what is sacred, of what is transcendent communication.; This dissertation is an ethnography of how pilgrims who walk to Santiago de Compostela manifest spirituality. It relies on ethnomethodology to describe how pilgrims interact with the Camino. It depends on phenomenology to suggest how everyday situations reveal transcendent experience.