Fonte: Turismo y Sociedad; Vol 28 (2021): Enero-Junio; 57-73
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Resumo: This article describes and analyzes the evolution spiritual tourism has had -and continues to have- in the Department of Lavalleja (Uruguay), from an anti-historicist perspective. This means that the study of the evolution of spiritual tourism is not conceived from a “linear” approach over historical time. Rather, it is conceived from the application of the concept of time-now created by the philosopher Walter Benjamin. Thusly, the different temporalities that coexist in isolated form in certain occasions are reconnected. This avoids presenting a causal explanation of the historical development of spiritual tourism in the Department of Lavalleja, allowing certain aspects of the past to emerge in some instances connecting the different temporalities. Hence, in several rises of tourist attractions –under certain conditions– there is a reference to the “mystic” past bringing it to the present, in order to legitimize the practice of certain modalities of spiritual tourism. The Benjaminian approach of spiritual phenomena that took place at the beginning of the xx and xxi centuries, shows how it is impossible to establish a causal link between different forms of religiosity which are currently developed in the Department of Lavalleja.
