"What Do We Do to Keep People Engaged?": A Comparison of Two Small-Town Ghost Tours

<div class="page" title="Page 3"> <div class="layoutArea"> <div class="column"> This thesis examines ghost tours from Statesville, NC and Hillsborough, NC to understand their function in their communities, their phenomenological aspects, and their choices in conveying local history. The thesis opens with a literature review which establishes dark tourism, the theoretical frameworks of phenomenology and hauntology, and the literature on ghost tours. The current literature on ghost tours is mostly focused on large urban cities with well-known hauntings, and this thesis seeks to add smaller and lesser-known towns to that body of literature. Using ethnographic, interview, and survey data, it seeks to understand what the goals of those running the tours are and to understand the experience of participants on these tours. The Statesville tour, coming from a small rural town, is sponsored by a nonprofit development group with the goals of increasing tourism and spreading local history. Despite this highly public structure, it reflects honestly on the history of injustice in Statesville, NC creating secondary hauntings. It also implements humor and emotionality effectively to enchant the audience. The Hillsborough, NC tour is privately operated and uses the narrative of the colonial Regulator movement to explain local history to participants. Despite its private operation, this tour utilizes primary hauntings and creates audience connection through the guide who is in-character as a ghost and uses props and historical images throughout. The interview and survey responses both show that people come to the tours with the goal of historical education, and historical educators find it to be a useful tool. However, ghost tours can be troubling for what they exclude from their narrative, or the way they frame violent histories for minority groups. Overall, both tours take a different approach to navigating these difficult topics while using similar techniques to phenomenologically engage their participants. </div> </div> </div>