The Ghosts of Mining Past: A Settler Colonial Story

Abstract

Summary Ethnographic 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.

On the mobility of ghosts: spectral journeys in the South African lowveld

“…Ghosts were displaced from lineages and networks of kin. Their location was not in dining rooms and in churches, as among the Anglo-Indians of Kharagpur (Bear 2007); in abandoned mineshafts, as in Cobalt, Canada (Stern 2019); in empty homes, as in the gated middle-class communities of Chiang Mai (Johnson 2013); or on the former battlegrounds of the American war in Vietnam (Kwon 2008). Ghosts traversed the highways that connect villages, towns and cities, and they travelled on the footpaths between different village sections.…”

“…But from interviews it was clear that ghosts did not simply connect people to places, as in the situations described by Bear (2007), Stern (2019) and Johnson (2013). Instead, ghosts were on the move, and frequently compelled those they met to travel with them.…”

“…For one, Kwon's relational approach shows that the ancestors are more likely to be markers of places than ghosts. The Anglo-Indians of Kharagpur, described by Bear (2007), made no clear distinction between ancestors and ghosts, and the Canadians described by Stern (2019) sustained little active relationship with their ancestors. In these situations, ghosts seem to substitute for the ancestors as agents of emplacement.…”

“…In Kharagpur, she argues, the Catholic Church mediates between people and ghosts, through rituals such as All Saints' Day. Stern (2019), in turn, relates ghostly encounters in Cobalt, a former mining town in Ontario, Canada, to nostalgia. In the early twentieth century, Cobalt hosted a silver mine that brought foreign capital to Canada and supported a vibrant social life.…”

“With All The Ghosts that Haunt the Park...”: Haunted Recreation in Brent (Ontario)

“…But these most grim details are not always hidden or ignored, and perhaps, are more often directly sought in a culture wrought by overexposed visual cues, and hyperexhibitionism. Similar to the descriptions of ghost tales told in the mining towns of Ontario's near north by Pamela Stern (2019), the story I soon heard made no effort to elide violence, and rather sought to elicit a particular response to the mention of violence counter-posed to the images of serenity that predominate representations of the Park.…”