Haunted Heritage: The Cultural Politics of Ghost Tourism, Populism, and the Past / Edition 1

by Michele Hanks

Overview

Haunted Heritage is a fascinating scholarly examination of the dynamics of ghost or paranormal tourism. Michele Hanks explores how this phenomenon allows for the re-articulation and re-configuring of ideas of heritage, epistemic authority, nation, and belonging. Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork, Hanks delves into the anthropological, sociological, political, historical, and cultural factors that drive this burgeoning business. Using York, England, said to be “the most haunted city in the world,” as the base for her research, Hanks focuses on three forms of ghost tourism: ghost walks, commercial ghost hunts, and non-profit ghost hunts and paranormal investigations, comparing the experience of York with other sites of ghost tourism globally. This book will appeal to scholars interested in tourism, heritage, the paranormal, visual cultural, British studies, or popular religion.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781611322262
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	01/15/2015
Series:	Heritage, Tourism, and Community , #7
Pages:	205
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Currently a full-time Lecturer and SAGES Fellow in the Department of Anthropology at Case Western Reserve University, Michele Hanks received her Ph.D. in socio-cultural anthropology in 2011 from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research interests and experiences have centered on tourism, the production of knowledge, and cultural politics. She has been fascinated by how forms of knowledge or interpretations of the past become authoritative in the past and present. Her dissertation research centered on the production and circulation of paranormal knowledge in England. During 2006-2009, she conducted ethnographic research with ghost hunters, ghost tour guides, and other paranormal researchers in England to learn about the processes of producing and sharing new knowledge of the ghostly. She has presented numerous papers on this research at local, national, and international conferences and local colloquia.

Table of Contents

Introduction Ghost Tourism and the Production of Haunted Heritage; Chapter 1 Constructing Haunted Destinations: An Analysis of Ghosts on TV, in Travel Literature, and in the Museum; Chapter 2 Discourses and Enactments of Belief and Transformation on Ghost Walks and Commercial Ghost Hunts; Chapter 3 Staging Ghost Hunts: The Roles of Knowledge, Expertise, and Science in Ghost Tourism; Chapter 4 Encountering the Ghostly: Mediumship, Populism, and the Articulation of Amateur Expertise; Chapter 5 “This is the Real England”: Discourses of Authenticity, National Belonging, and Difference; conclusion The Populist Logic of Haunted Heritage and its Consequences;

Editorial Reviews

"It is a great read whether you believe in ghosts and the paranormal, or not, and would be useful to scholars of heritage to broaden its present political ordering. …The text raises many issues of interest to students of anthropology."
—Anne-Marie d’Hauteserre, American Anthropological Association’s Anthropology Book Forum

From the Publisher