Presence from another world. An ethnography on paranormal investigation and the social interaction with ghosts
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2402891 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Nicola Pannofino (0000-0001-6299-415X, Pegaso University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Publication date | 2025-04-22 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Ethnography (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1466-1381 • E-ISSN: 1741-2714 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/14661381251332810 |
| OpenAlex | W4409676628 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 49 |
The contemporary "paranormal turn", that is the fascination with mystery and occult in contemporary popular imaginary gave cultural relevance to the figure of ghost. An example of this trend is the practice of ghost hunting, the investigation conducted by amateur groups in alleged haunted places. This paper focuses on an ethnography carried out within Italian ghost hunter teams aimed at studying the ways in which the liminal experience of encountering ghosts is realized. The analysis shows how such an encounter is not reducible to spiritual beliefs, but is the outcome of a process of construction of a dimension that eludes the five-sense perception through strategies implemented in the social interaction by which human actors confer agency to non-human entities, defining two forms of the presence of ghosts in the field: "acted" and "agent" presence
Epistemology · Ethnography · Paranormal · Sociology · Anthropology · Jungian Analytical Psychology · Paranormal Experiences and Beliefs · Philosophy · Religious Studies and Spiritual Practices
The varieties of religious experience
What Is Hauntology?
Sensing the presence of gods and spirits across cultures and faiths
Visual Consumption
Ghost Hunters' Demonic Encounters as Religious Experiences
Cognitive Biases and Religious Belief
Believing is seeing
Felt presence
Approaching the Paranormal
Ghostly Encounters
Behavior in Public Places
A social anthropology of ghosts in twenty-first-century America
Material Practices of Ethnographic Presence
Development and Validation of a Porous Theory of Mind Scale
Social research 2.0
Paranormal Media
Most Haunted and the Convergence of Traditional Belief and Popular Television
The Spectralities Reader
Ghosts and their Relationship with the Age of a City
The time is out of joint
Snowball Sampling and Facebook
The separate roles of the reflective mind and involuntary inhibitory control in gatekeeping paranormal beliefs and the underlying intuitive confusions
An investigation into alleged 'hauntings
The Ghosts of Industrial Ruins
Pointing to an 'empty' space
Footing
The Paranormal is (Still) Normal
Supernatural Sociology
Locating haunting
Gestures that do
Manifesting Spirits
Between Electricity and Spirit
Give us a Sign of Your Presence
Ethnography Beyond the Human
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |