| Title | Ghost (Story) Hunters |
|---|---|
| Contributor | Caitrin Lynch (author) |
| Adam Coppola (author) | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.53288/0361.1.14 |
| Landing page | https://punctumbooks.com/titles/living-with-monsters-ethnographic-fiction-about-real-monsters/ |
| License | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ |
| Copyright | Caitrin Lynch, Adam Coppola |
| Publisher | punctum books |
| Published on | 2023-05-11 |
| Long abstract | We visited a 150-year-old New England textile mill, taking a nighttime ghost tour of the Riverway mill and an adjoining abandoned mill that workers call “The Other Side.” The tour let us learn about many of the ghost stories that people at the mill tell each other. These ghost stories circulate in an area of the United States decimated by closures of mills and factories, where rates of unemployment, divorce, school leaving, addiction, and suicides run high. Global capitalism has shrunk the US textile business, and Riverway is no stranger to these global shifts: the mill has many fewer workers than it did in its heyday in the early 1970s and the mill next door shut down entirely. This chapter shows how past employees and their stories of work and livelihoods live in the walls, stairs, corners, and everyday stories of these two adjacent mills. |
| Page range | pp. 237–259 |
| Print length | 23 pages |
| Language | English (Original) |
| Keywords |
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Caitrin Lynch is the Dean of Faculty and professor of anthropology at Olin College of Engineering. She is the author of two books, Retirement on the Line: Age, Work, and Value in An American Factory (Cornell University Press, 2012) and Juki Girls, Good Girls: Gender and Cultural Politics in Sri Lanka's Global Garment Industry (Cornell University Press, 2007). She also produced the documentary film, My Name is Julius. Her research and teaching passions include examining the dynamics of work and cultural values with a focus on aging and gender as well as the cultural dimensions of offshore manufacturing, plus a commitment to understanding social behavior in global contexts and a devotion to encouraging students to use qualitative methods to think critically about the world around them.
Adam Coppola is a technical trainer working in the software industry. While teaching the ins and outs of software, Adam incorporates lessons on how human needs and values shape technical systems and vice versa. Adam has worked in education and anthropology research, and he is inspired by critical theorists and human rights advocates.