Understanding Hajj travel: a dynamic identity perspective

The present study brings an explanation for how tourist–pilgrims construct, deconstruct, and reconstruct their identities throughout the Hajj travel. The study focuses on the embodied, symbolic, and experiential aspects of this experience, creating idiosyncratic meanings for individuals. This travel is conceptualized as a religious endeavor and a consumptive-touristic activity at the same time, studied within a cultural context shaped by social, religious, and individual values, which is called the Consumer Culture Theory. This study also presents a new perspective by decomposing the pilgrim–tourist continuum and negating the opposite ends of pure tourists and pure pilgrims. Qualitative methodology is employed to provide a deeper understanding and a thicker explanation. In-depth interview data is collected from 38 individuals, in addition to findings gathered from prolonged observation of religious settings and several social media accounts. Findings draw attention to different groups of pilgrim–tourists, named as Mortals, Cleaners, Journalists, and Seekers. Findings also indicate that each individual can illustrate the characteristics of different groups, and that self-transformation can interactively occur among different groups of pilgrim–tourists. Identity appears as an ongoing project to be negotiated in the Hajj context, intertwined with the leisure aspect of this religious/touristic encounter.