Becoming Hauntologists: A New Model for Critical-Creative Heritage Practice

This essay explores the generative potential of a particular concept – Derrida’s notion of “hauntology” – across a wide range of heritage domains. In doing so it addresses one of the central concerns of critical heritage, namely what it means to practice criticality and what the social and political implications of this process might be. The paper begins by examining the broad points of intersection between heritage and hauntology, before moving on to consider three more defined areas of thematic overlap. These encompass the ghosts of place, spectral aesthetics, and recent ideas emerging from the environmental humanities around more-than-human hauntings. While there is considerable crossover between these fields, each builds upon a different set of texts and micro case studies to show the distinctive ways in which Derrida’s concept has been taken up and reconfigured in diverse disciplinary contexts. The paper concludes with a summary of the possible implications for adopting (and adapting) hauntology as a mode of doing critical heritage.