ABSTRACT
This chapter, based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Gettysburg in 2010, explores a new branch of heritage activity on the rise: ghost tourism. It outlines how the Gettysburg's claim to fame revolves around death and its ceaseless re-meditation and presents the key traits of the current policies of 'conventional' commemoration in Gettysburg as devised by the US National Park Service. Avery Gordon's critique of the 'bloodless' standard conventions of social science could also be read as giving voice to the experiences of inadequacy, widespread among the paranormal practitioners. The paranormal enthusiasts, in contrast, seek to minimize distance and optimize contact, and to seek out pockets of sociality in which control may be lost, doubtful, or in flux. The room for interpretation of the sound bites was very broad, and yet the processes through which a particular interpretation, usually Tom's or Greg's, of a piece rapidly obtained validity, stability and an agency of its own, was remarkable.
