Religious and spiritual festivals and events

This chapter attempts a critical review and appraisal of the current state of research into religious and spiritual festivals. The literature emerges from a wide range of multidisciplinary sources, which have historically sat in separate disciplinary silos – from theology and sociology, to anthropology and other subject areas. Whilst the study of festivals from an events management perspective is fairly new (for only the past twenty years at most – Bowdin et al, 2011; Getz, 2012), eminent academic writers such as Durkheim, Turner and Falassi have previously addressed the topic of festivals, through the lens of religion and spirituality, celebration and ritual. However, in this research, spirituality and religion linked to festivals has generally been from a tangent, in comparison to contemporary research (Robinson, 2015; McKay, 2015). Meanwhile, historical silos are beginning to merge across disciplines, as the emergence of the critical events studies turn indicates the coming of age of the study of events and festivals from its management and logistics subject origins (Lamond and Spracklen, 2014; Spracklen and Lamond, 2016; Rojek, 2013). The historical origins of religious events (such as festivals, feasts, fasts and mystery plays) have evolved into what dominates much of the secular cultural post-modern landscape of today, in what might be seen as the eventization of life in the 21st century.

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