Full Description
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.
Contents
Prelims
Notes on contributors
Emilie Morwenna Whitaker and Paul Atkinson, Introduction: Ghosts, Ancestors And Ethnographers
Emilie Morwenna Whitaker, Ghosts and the Archive
Paolo Favero, An Anthropologist Among Ghosts: On a House, Images and the Many Uses of Ethnography
Cristina Rocha, A Haunted Field: The Ghosts of Abuse in Spiritual Communities
Deborah Reed-Danahay, The Ghosts of First Fieldwork
Helena Wulff, When I Was a Theatre Ghost: Spectral Stories and Forms of Folklore in the Field
Michael Herzfeld, Agnosticism and Spectrality: Ghostly Traces and Ethnographic Experience
Tia DeNora, Perceiving the Beyond of 'End-of-Life': The Idea of Commuting Ghosts
Roger Sansi, Return to the Orixás
Maia Hetaraka, Selena Meiklejohn-Whiu, Justice Hetaraka, Katie Fitzpatrick and Melinda Webber, What kind of an ancestor do you want to be? Engaging with tūpuna in indigenous ethnography in Aotearoa New Zealand
Sara Delamont, The Ghosts Behind My Chair: Reflections on the Fieldwork at St. Luke's
Greg Smith, Spectral Goffman
Black Hawk Hancock, Out of Step, Out of Time: Haunted by the Loss of the World
Paul Atkinson, An Ethnographic Sojourner
Index
