ABSTRACT
Over more than three decades of conducting anthropological fieldwork in Garhwal in the Western Himalayas of North India, I have had a lot to do with ghosts. Ghosts are, by their nature, rather mysterious beings, but one thing about them especially puzzled me: Why had I never managed to see one, even though nearly all of my village friends and acquaintances said they had done so? I think that this question goes to the heart of what it means to do anthropology, and to think like an anthropologist. It brings into focus what I take to be the central problem of anthropology: explaining the causes and consequences of cultural diversity. Why do people in some cultures see ghosts, while people from others can’t? Why and how is it that people experience the world so differently? I have pondered over this question often: you might even say that I have been “haunted” by it.
