Haunted Heritage

The Cultural Politics of Ghost Tourism, Populism, and the Past

Michele Hanks

• Editorial: Routledge
• Año: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781315427591
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: Social Sciences
• Categoría: Archaeology

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.

CHAPTER ONE

CONSTRUCTING HAUNTED DESTINATIONS: AN ANALYSIS OF GHOSTS ON TV, IN TRAVEL LITERATURE, AND IN THE MUSEUM

The ghost of Edward ii’s favourite, Piers Gaveston, haunts Scarborough Castle (open to the public). Gaveston was captured here and taken to Warwick for execution. His headless ghost is malicious. It haunts the broken battlements and rushes at trespassers foolhardy enough to visit the castle at night.

—John Brooks, The Good Ghost Guide

Occasionally, if they are lucky, people walking … by the walls of Scarborough Castle see the headless spirit of Piers Gaveston rushing towards them, ghostly blood still gushing from the severed arteries in its neck.… Those who fail to notice this ghost approaching them are pushed violently over the cliff’s edge.… It has always been something of a mystery as to why Gaveston’s ghost should choose to haunt Scarborough Castle shoving innocent holiday makers to their deaths. One possible explanation is … the fine sea views, the healthy airs, or the multitude of tourist attractions for which the Old Town of Scarborough is now rightly famous.

—Michael Wray, The Haunted Coast

Scarborough Castle has seen many reports of the ghost of a man beheaded in the 14th century walking the paths. One version of the story says he tries to lure visitors to the edge of the cliff and then pushes them off.

—Spirit Seekers Tour Site

Different ghost guidebooks present a single ghost, Piers Gaveston, in significantly varying ways. One ghost guide presents Gaveston in a matter-of-fact fashion that positions him like any other tourist attraction. A collection of regional ghost stories, sold in a tourist shop near the Castle, tells a flowery, historically detailed account of Gaveston’s story that includes details of his life, death, and spectral motivation. Finally, another tour company offers a brief and vague version of Gaveston’s story that fails to mention him by name and emphasizes reports of experiential elements of his haunting. Gaveston’s ghost is not unique. Most English ghosts are recorded, presented, and circulated in a variety of media formats, including collections of ghost stories, ghost guidebooks, and television shows about the paranormal—to say nothing of literature produced by tour companies to attract tourists. Both Gaveston’s ghost and the nature of the haunting at Scarborough Castle appear more coherent and consistent across the media selected here than many other ghosts; guidebooks often present competing suites of ghostly traits, stories, and experiences.¹

The above stories with their variations in rhetorical emphasis and content reveal a central tension in popular depictions of ghosts in contemporary England. At one end of the spectrum, ghosts appear as fully formed entities complete with a known history that intersects with the given historical record. On the other end, they appear as anonymous, lurking beings characterized primarily through contemporary tourists’ embodied experiences of them. In short, there is no unified understanding of ghosts. Ernesto Laclau suggested that spectrality can be “found in this undecidability between flesh and spirit; it is not pure body—for in that case there would be no spectrality at all; but it is not pure spirit either—for the passage to the flesh is crucial” (1995, 87). As such, there must always be an interminability and uncertainty surrounding the ghostly. In this chapter, I argue that the interplay of understandings of ghosts as either historically grounded figures or inchoate beings that are experientially known fuels the practices of ghost tourism, particularly in the context of established heritage sites. This dynamic tension, I argue, also obscures the existential, ontological, and spiritual questions raised by the presence of ghosts: does life after death exist, and if so, what is the evidence of it? By avoiding such thorny questions and instead positioning ghosts as either historical reality or experiential thrill, this rhetorical tension renders ghosts as safe, available components of English heritage. Organizations like the National Trust and English Heritage embrace these understandings of ghosts and incorporate them into their depiction of heritage, while some ghost tourists rely on the same media to problematize the idea of ghosts.

This diverging image of ghosts circulates through public culture shaping the goals and ideals of paranormal tourists and the character and desirability of paranormal destinations. This chapter examines the role of three key elements of public culture that influence and shape paranormal tourism: guidebooks to haunted locations, paranormal reality television, and the brochures and literature of the ghost tourist industry. I argue that these three interrelated forms of public culture, while offering varied accounts of ghosts and the past, collectively contribute to several important elements of paranormal tourism: (1) the construction of a particular epistemology of the past grounded in experience; (2) an understanding of experience as a popularly available resource; and (3) an understanding of paranormality grounded in travel and difference.

That public culture shapes and informs ghost tourism is no surprise to scholars of tourism. As John Urry noted “places are chosen to be gazed upon because there is an anticipation.… Such anticipation is constructed and sustained through a variety of non-tourist practices, such as film, TV, literature, magazines, videos, which construct and reinforce the gaze” (1990, 3). In recent years, studies of the impact of film, literature, and television on tourism in general (Beeton 2005; Deery 2004; Hudson and Ritchie 2006; Mordue 2009) and perceptions of English heritage in particular (Higson 2001, 2003) have highlighted the importance of popular media in shaping tourism. Communication studies scholars (Maller and Lundeen 1933; Sparks and Miller 2001; Sparks and Pellechia 1997), as well as popular critics (Dawkins 2000; Randi 1992; Shermer 2001), have also long been interested in the role of the media in fostering and sustaining “paranormal belief.” There has been less attention to the ways in which these mediated images mobilize varying levels of paranormal belief or interest into culturally elaborated and orchestrated action, as is the case in ghost tourism.

Genres of Ghost Media

From literature to film, ghosts appear in a wide range of media. As I noted in the introduction, scholars have begun to analyze the significance and meaning of such literary representations (Gordon 1997; Richardson 2003). While a broad range of popular imaginings certainly contribute to tourists’ understandings of the ghostly and their travel practices, the role of “reality-based” understandings is less well understood. In particular, guidebooks and travel shows play an especially important role in crafting the practices and paradoxes of ghost tourism.

Guidebooks are a staple of all forms of tourism. Specialized guidebooks abound, offering specialty guides for tourists interested in food, art, architecture, walking, literature, and more. Ghosts constitute a component of that market. Of course, the inclusion of ghosts in travel guides is far from a new development. For example, in 1855, Harriet Martineau’s A Complete Guide to the English Lakes mentioned several haunted homes and businesses. More recently, travel guides, such as Lonely Planet England (2005), include information about ghost tours and haunted sites. However, books that specifically chronicle the ghosts in a particular area have become an ubiquitous form of publication.

Such books that tell ghost stories were common during my research in England. I found them in gift shops at touristic, historic, and archaeological sites, as well as in official tourist offices and individual bookshops.² Stylistically, these books ranged from beautifully produced, mass published texts to smaller volumes published by local or regional presses. These books also vary in content. Some books offer brief accounts of locations with an emphasis on the type of paranormal activity visitors might encounter there. Others tell complete ghost stories that emphasize the narrative and folkloric value of the tales and minimize visitors’ potential for paranormal experience. In each case, these texts play an important part in defining the scope and scale of ghost tourism in Britain.

There are two dominant genres of ghost books produced for the touristic market: books of ghost stories and encyclopedias of hauntings.³ The former focuses on providing detailed accounts of well-known ghost stories. The latter focuses on providing an encyclopedic catalogue of ghosts in a country, region, or nation. While the conventions of each genre vary, they share an emphasis on recounting the history and nature of paranormal experience, although each type of book tends to focus on a slightly different component.

Anthologies of Ghost Stories

Collections of ghost stories are commonly found in gift shops and bookshops. These books tend to privilege complete stories of ghosts and provide information about the history of the ghost, the emergence of the haunting, and experiential details. These books can emphasize varying degrees of realism. For example, in the introduction to Classic Devon Ghost Stories, the compiler, Paul White, explains that “the stories in this book have come from many sources, most notably Sir Ernest Bennet, Mrs. Bray … [and others]. They have been selected for readability rather than psychical authenticity, and you certainly do not need to believe in ghosts and apparitions in order to enjoy them.” (1996, 1). White’s introduction articulated the divide that this genre of text navigates. Such texts are not produced with avid ghost hunters in mind; rather, they are produced for casual tourists or enthusiasts who enjoy the historical and atmospheric dimensions of ghosts. Despite this, they do not discount the possibility of actual encounters with the ghostly.

The stories chronicled in White’s volume typically include information about their source, as well as a detailed account of the ghost story in question, often in period writing. Of course, not all anthologies offer such detailed information regarding the origin of a story. In one example, Ghosts and Ghouls of the East Riding, Michael Wray (2004) simply launches into ghost stories without recounting their historical origins. The characters and contexts of the story emerge without much contextualization. In another instance, he begins a ghost story by noting “it was evening in the little village of Harpham.… An old widow was looking sadly out of her cottage window” (Wray 2004, 5). He goes on to explain that the widow’s son, a drummer, was murdered and thrown into a well and that the sounds of drumming can still be heard from the well. While this story is a fairly typical ghost story, the rhetorical construction of the tale is worth noting. By beginning the story with the widow looking out the window, Wray establishes himself as an omniscient narrator. This has the effect of rendering the ghost story as folklore rather than psychical reality.

Such rhetorical style serves to highlight the romantic, atmospheric components of ghost stories. Some may interpret these stories as reliable accounts of past hauntings. For example, Wray includes some of the necessary information for tourists to visit and experience the hauntings on their own; however, it is not the main focus of his text. Ultimately, these texts tend to present ghosts as fully formed and reasonably well-known entities, and they give the impression that there is a known canon of fully formed ghosts occupying the landscape. Museums and heritage sites find this vein of understanding very useful in articulating their model of the haunted past.

Encyclopedias of Hauntings

Encyclopedias of hauntings tend to include a greater number of brief accounts of ghosts with special focus on the experiential elements. Entries detailing the specificities of particular haunted sites constitute anywhere between a paragraph and several pages in length. These entries rarely attempt to include all of the history of the site. They also tend to avoid the flowery or romantic language found in some collections of ghost stories. They emphasize sites that have regular paranormal activity, and their descriptions treat the activity as real and reliable.

In many ways, Derek Acorah’s Haunted Britain and Ireland (2006) is representative of the genre and particularly noteworthy given his fame among paranormal enthusiasts.⁴ In the introduction to his guide, he introduces readers to several types of manifestations of ghosts and hauntings, as well as some of the ways in which people can pursue them. (These articulations are very much in line with what shows, such as Most Haunted, emphasize as ideal research techniques.) Acorah makes it clear in his introduction that it is a guidebook intended to help paranormal enthusiasts or ghost hunters pursue their interest in the paranormal. John Brooks’s The Good Ghost Guide is also typical of this approach. Publishers fashioned the guidebook, which is taller than most books, to look like emblematic guidebooks like Fodor’s, which are a convenient size for travel. The Good Ghost Guide goes so far as to remind readers that “although this book mentions times and places where ghosts are reported to appear, no guarantees are offered” (Brooks 1994, 7 [figure 1.1]). The inclusion of this disclaimer speaks to several key assumptions about the purpose of the volume. Most notably, its goal is to direct tourists to ghosts and, even more importantly, facilitate their encounters with a ghost.⁵

In recent years, with the increasing popularity of ghost hunting as a hobby, local researchers increasingly produce such guides and include firsthand accounts of their own embodied experiences and research. One excellent example of this approach is Otherworld North East: Ghosts and Hauntings Explored (Liddell 2004). In it, Tony Liddell, an archaeologist and paranormal investigator, presents 40 haunted locations, 16 of which include paranormal investigation case studies. While Liddell includes elements of ghost stories and history, the emphasis here is on the experiential elements of the hauntings. A related trend is evident in online databases of ghosts and hauntings maintained by ghost hunting and paranormal investigation groups, such as websites like Ghost Village and Real Ghosts and Haunted Places in Britain. These websites follow the encyclopedic approach and emphasize the experiential dimensions of haunting. For instance, the website Real Ghosts and Haunted Places in Britain describes its approach this way.

You may wonder what I mean by the term ‘real ghosts?’ I mean, not only the traditional phantoms that you may think of when you hear the word ‘ghosts,’ but also screaming skulls, headless specters and phantom black dogs. Phenomena that seems to be peculiar to Britain. These British ghosts don’t all have to be visible in order to be ‘real.’ Ghosts can be heard, smelt, seen or felt or they may make their presence known in some other way and here you will find ghosts of this sort as well as poltergeists and, ‘things that go bump in the night.’ (Real British Ghosts.com)

FIGURE 1.1 The Good Ghost Guide, like standard guidebooks such as Fodor’s, seems designed to fit easily into a travellers’ bags. It provides information about the location of haunted sites as well as their availability to the public and the type of hauntings housed there.

This website’s emphasis on experience and the breadth of the sensorium is representative of much online coverage. In addition to such overview sites, local ghost hunting and paranormal investigation groups also produce smaller encyclopedias of hauntings on their websites with special focus on their personal encounters.

Additionally, presenters from reality television programs increasingly publish their own guides to haunted locations, as well as paranormal investigation.⁶ As individuals emerge as celebrities in the ghost hunting field, increasingly they have begun to publish first person accounts of their experiences that act as de facto guidebooks. For example, in 2007 Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson, from the American television show Ghost Hunters, published Ghost Hunting: True Stories of Unexplained Phenomena from The Atlantic Paranormal Society, which provides first person accounts of their research at various haunted sites. The increasing presence and popularity of these books demonstrates the pervasive role of paranormal reality television in constructing understandings of hauntings.

TV Programs

Since the late 1990s, there has been an abundance of television programs focused on the paranormal or ghostly in both the UK and the US. These shows played an important role in reviving and reinventing popular interest in the paranormal. They have also played an important role in promoting, constructing, and guiding ghost tourism. Programs such as Most Haunted, Ghost Adventurers, America’s Haunted Hotels, Most Terrifying Places in America, and Ghost Hunters foreground a documentary approach to the paranormal, and they are wildly popular in Britain and the US. There is a long history of television programs that focus on the paranormal or spooky. In the past, these program...