Feet in Hell, Spirit in Heaven: Spiritual Transformation of Chinese Travelers on the Camino de Santiago

The study aims to understand the precursors, catalysts, and dimensions of the spiritual transformation of Chinese travelers on the Camino de Santiago, a pilgrimage-tourist route in Spain. This research has adopted the theoretical framework of spiritual transformation by Pargament and his colleagues in collecting the transformative experience of Chinese Camino travelers reported in 139 blogs and stories. Thematic analysis is employed in analyzing the data. The study results show that Chinese travelers underwent spiritually transformative experiences, as observed in the changes in their relationship to themselves, others, nature, and the transcendent. These four dimensions are interconnected and experienced as something integrated with Chinese cultural and spiritual traditions. This study also explores the transculturality of spiritual experience, the important role of embodied engagement, and the critical and essential qualities of liminality in the transformative process on the Camino de Santiago.

The Pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago and Its Impacts on Marital and Familial Relationships: An Exploratory Study

This paper presents the results of a survey conducted among people walking the pilgrimage route to the shrine of St James in Santiago de Compostela. The aim of the research was to investigate how a pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago among a married couple or family affects marital or familial relationships, whether walking the trail to Compostela together influences the behaviour of family members towards each other and whether it forms positive attitudes and behaviour. The empirical basis of the study is the results of a survey among respondents who made the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage, as well as in-depth interviews conducted with 24 spouses of pilgrims along the Way of St James. The study revealed that doing the pilgrimage as a married couple or family had a positive impact on intra-family relationships. According to the interviewees, going on the pilgrimage together helped to strengthen marital bonds and trust, improve communication and mutual connection, show care and affection and improve contact with children.

The Game of Skittles on the Northern Route of the Camino de Santiago

The main purpose of this study was to analyze the presence and current situation of the game of skittles throughout the northern route of the Camino de Santiago. Thus, we considered its current practice, modalities, where it is played, and its different manifestations as an informal and formal game (sport), comparing it with other traditional games on this pilgrimage route. To do this, a mixed qualitative-quantitative study was designed with 89 participants (municipal professionals, politicians, players, club managers, and teachers), constituting an informant for each municipality through which the Northern Way passes. An ad hoc questionnaire was used for the data collection, which was processed through content analysis by expert judges (qualitative section) and by using the IBM-SPSS statistical package (version 25). The results of the study show notable skittles activity on the Northern Camino (58.32% of the municipalities), reflected in the number of skittles alleys (n = 291), the number of clubs, associations, and peñas participating in federated leagues (n = 162), and the wide range of varieties of skittles currently active on the Camino (n = 20). The relationship between skittles and local culture, both symbols of identity in these northern Spanish regions, made it possible to preserve the traditional heritage in these places, keeping it alive today, despite the push toward new and more attractive leisure and sport trends.