The Ghosts of Mining Past: A Settler Colonial Story

Abstract

SummaryEthnographic reports of ghosts, spirits, and other nonhuman agents are portrayed as very different entities depending upon whether the people perceiving them are recognized as indigenous or nonindigenous. The nonhuman agents apprehended by indigenous peoples are nearly always described as ontological, while ethnographers tend to treat ghosts and other spirits among nonindigenous peoples as a form of protest. Using ethnographic data from the former silver mining settler community of Cobalt, Ontario Canada, I challenge this dichotomization. Instead, I argue ghostly encounters may arise from the social practices of emplacement, which may be indigenous or nonindigenous. In Cobalt, heritage work and nostalgia for an earlier time causes some residents to envision ghosts or spirits of long ended mining.