In the United States, ghost tourism is growing at an increasing rate. Most evenings, tourists take ghost tours that narrate historical moments and expose boundary-dwelling specters. I plan to examine this industry, not new but experiencing a proliferation, in the tourist-fueled region of Tidewater Virginia. Specifically, I plan to use theories of performance and performativity, deploying terms like “death tourism” and “morbid tourism” to deconstruct the ghostly narratives shared in historic house museums. Historic house museums often highlight privileged lives but with the implementation of alternative interpretative and moneymaking techniques, like the ghost tour, house museums are increasingly telling the story of marginalized persons. Still, these tellings are problematic, as they operate extra-historically – or even ahistorically - in the liminal tour space.
I plan to consider several historic house museums, located around Williamsburg, Virginia, as an example of how narratives are told and retold. Intrinsic to these house museum tours are issues of economic viability, visitor interest, and research capability. Drawing primarily on two tours offered at the Manor House at Powhatan Plantation, the “Walking History Tour” and “Ghost Academy and Tour,” I plan to examine the varying interpretative techniques of historic home museums in Tidewater Virginia. I plan to ask specific questions along the way: what modes does the tour guide use to establish his or her authenticity/believability? How does interactive audience participation affect the narrative’s sequence? Where are the tour’s topical and spatial boundaries (i.e. subject matter, time period, geographic location)? And, finally, how does the ghost tour offer scholars a space to interrogate not only what is deemed “other-worldly” but also why these showcased ghosts float closer to modern audiences in capital-driven projects? I contend that the tour space provides insight into what remains on the periphery of heritage tourism – and what gets showcased.
About the presenterMariaelena DiBenigno
Mariaelena is a Ph.D. candidate in the American Studies Program at the College of William and Mary. After several years as a middle school teacher, she completed her English M.A at the University of North Carolina Wilmington; her thesis concerned the relationship between folklore and tourism in the coastal Carolinas. Other research interests include connections between spectrality, memory and public history; popular American narratives about war; and death commemoration in the United States.