Faith, hope and love: doing family through consuming pilgrimage

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to explore the consumption of Lourdes, a Catholic pilgrimage site in France. Based on a three-year ethnography, our findings focus on respondents’ ‘Lourdes stories’. Discussing themes of faith, hope and love, we illustrate the importance of the family in consuming Lourdes. Family members act as influencing agents in the initial and sometimes continuous consumption of Lourdes. Our findings differ from consumer research to date in that rather than furthering discussion of family structure or furthering discussion on family identity we suggest a new focus is the actual building of intimate family bonds and relationships – the ‘doing’ of family or ‘familying’ – with the context of the Lourdes pilgrimage offering consumers a unique setting comprising faith, fun and family.

Keywords:

• family
• ethnography
• ‘doing family’
• pilgrimage

Notes

¹ Within Catholicism and amongst some protestant churches, Mass relates to the celebration of the Eucharist. The Eucharist is the ritual receiving of bread and wine, which is believed by Catholics to be the body and blood of Jesus Christ. During the religious service, the scriptural word is read and the priest discusses the relevance of scripture and Catholicism in modern society. One of the tenants of Catholicism is to attend Mass each Sunday.

² The First Holy Communion is one of the seven sacraments (something akin to a rite of passage) within Catholicism, marking a Catholic’s first receiving of the bread and wine, believed by Catholics to be the body and blood of Jesus Christ.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Leighanne Higgins

Leighanne Higgins is a lecturer at Lancaster University. Her research interests sit within the area of sacred and religious consumption, with a specific focus on the area of religious pilgrimage and experiential consumption. Recently completing her PhD, Leighanne has developed strong research recognition, with her recently awarded the St. Mary’s University Award for best doctoral paper at the interdisciplinary 2013 Miracles and Management Conference.

Kathy Hamilton

Kathy Hamilton is a senior lecturer in the Department of Marketing, University of Strathclyde, UK. Her research tends to fall within the area of Consumer Culture Theory. Key projects have focused on consumer vulnerability, poverty and the role of community in contemporary culture. Kathy is interested in interdisciplinary research and her work has been published in a variety of journals including Annals of Tourism Research, Journal of Marketing Management, Sociology and European Journal of Marketing.