Spectral Beings and Being Spectral: Ghostly Enchantment within Edinburgh’s Ghost Tours

An investigation of the embodied performance of spectrality and the generation of enchantment within Edinburgh's ghost tourism.

Abstract

Ghost tourism is big business in Scotland and in Edinburgh specifically. This paper is based off ethnographic fieldwork conducted with a number of the Scottish capital’s  ghost tour companies. It is concerned primarily with the performance and embodiment of spectrality by ghost tour guides, which is achieved through the use of theatrical techniques meant to immerse tour-goers into the ghostly. It is this immersion that marks ghost tours out as enchantment; a more special experience than the mundane manner of everyday existence, which goes some way to explaining the popularity of ghost tourism.