This chapter offers a critical reconsideration of the theory according to which the Road of St. James (Camiño de Santiago) provides a site for ethnic identity-making capable of modernizing Galicia as a rural region. By definition, a route or itinerary—rather than a fixed site of any kind—provides a sequence of places to pass through, overlapping in an intriguing way with Marc Augé’s concept of “non-places.” Putting into a comparative perspective the measures that led to the consolidation of the Road as a trans-regional and transnational itinerary during the presidency of the conservative Partido Popular in Galicia between 1990 and 2005, the essay demonstrates that the configuration of a regional image based on a larger itinerary may respond to broader, questionable, European agendas
