Ethnography’s Ghosts

Spectres, Archives, Ancestors

Emilie Morwenna Whitaker, Paul Atkinson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2026
• Print ISBN:
  9781032888248
  9781032891491
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781040693551
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Research & Methodology in Psychology
• Index: Social Sciences

With contributions from experienced scholars in sociology and anthropology, Ethnography's Ghosts illuminates and interrogates the 'ghosts' of past ethnographic fieldwork – whether revisited in practice or in the imagination.

This book captures the remnants of past ideas, people, and legacies that shape current practices, highlighting how fieldnotes transform into precious archives that both anchor and haunt researchers. By revisiting these notes, scholars experience a blend of nostalgia and revelation, freeing themselves from the pressures of immediate research demands and gaining new insights. The volume also addresses the ethical complexities of dealing with both personal and others' ghosts, offering a nuanced look at how past experiences continue to influence present scholarship.

This book makes an important intervention in discussions amongst sociologists, anthropologists, and other social scientists engaged in or reflecting on ethnographic research.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Notes on Contributors
• Preface and Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction: Ghosts, Ancestors and Ethnography
• 2 Ghosts and the Archive
• 3 An Anthropologist among Ghosts: On a House, Images, and the Many Uses of Ethnography
• 4 A Haunted Field: The Ghosts of Abuse in Spiritual Communities
• 5 The Ghosts of First Fieldwork
• 6 When I Was a Theatre Ghost: Spectral Stories and Forms of Folklore in the Field
• 7 Agnosticism and Spectrality: Ghostly Traces and Ethnographic Experience
• 8 Perceiving the Beyond of ‘End-of-Life’: The Idea of Commuting Ghosts
• 9 Return to the Orixás
• 10 What Kind of an Ancestor Do You Want to Be?: Engaging with Tūpuna in Indigenous Ethnography in Aotearoa New Zealand
• 11 The Ghosts Behind My Chair: Reflections on the Fieldwork at St Luke’s
• 12 Spectral Goffman
• 13 Out of Step – Out of Time: Haunted by the Loss of the World
• 14 An Ethnographic Sojourner
• Index