A Special Issue of International Journal of Information, Diversity, and Inclusion (IJIDI)

Guest Editors: Dr. Nadia Caidi, University of Toronto and Dr. Perla Innocenti, Northumbria University

Religious and secular pilgrimages have been part of human history since the beginning of time and remain very much alive today, whether it is the Holy Land, the Hajj, Lhasa, Kumbh Mela, Char Dham, or else the Camino de Santiago, Kumano Kodo, Glastonbury Tor, Elvis’s Graceland, national parks, or war memorials. Pilgrimage has been an object of study across disciplines: in art, architecture, and heritage, history, literature, social anthropology, religious studies, and tourism, among others. Yet, as a research context in information science, pilgrimage has been surprisingly overlooked. Similarly, while a body of work investigated religious tolerance and pluralism, few scholars explicitly addressed contemporary questions of diversity and inclusion in pilgrimage studies.

This Special Issue of IJIDI will address this gap by offering a combined information and diversity perspective to the study of pilgrimage; shedding light on the approaches and concepts that can enrich our understanding of the pilgrim’s journey and it complexities through the lens of information and media practices, embodied experiences, memory work, discourses and practices around diversity, curation practices, and community building in a global and digital world. This holistic approach will pave the way for a broader conversation on social phenomenology and the diversity of human information behaviors and religious/spiritual practices in the context of pilgrimage.

This Special Issue will try to answer the following questions:

– What research approaches are most suitable for exploring pilgrimage from the standpoint of diversity and inclusion in a global, networked environment?
– What framework would best account for the diverse informational rituals related to pilgrimage (including material, symbolic, affective dimensions)?
– What is the current and future role of cultural and memory institutions as resources on, and sites for, the documentation and curation of experiences and rituals in our networked world?
– How can we best understand the role played by meaning-making, authenticity, value-making, and performativity in the context of a diverse set of pilgrimages?
– How are pilgrimage traditions evolving in an age of migration and displacement? For example, what is the role of secondary shrines and new pilgrimage sites?

The International Journal of Information, Diversity, & Inclusion (IJIDI) presents wide­ ranging and multidisciplinary perspectives on the intersection of equity, social justice, and information. The journal seeks to expand the discourse on how access to, interaction with, and the use of information by a range of populations can impact individuals, communities, and society. IJIDI is a quarterly, open access, online journal.

IJIDI is a collaboration between the University of Maryland Libraries and iPAC, the Information Policy & Access Center at the University of Maryland.

More information at: https://publish.lib.umd.edu/IJIDI/