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

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.

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.