Dialogue Description:

We originally designed this dialogue to be a reading/book group for the book Ghostly Matters. However, after we started to dig in, we decided to shift away from a specific focus on the book (actually a very challenging read) to a wider discussion about the ways US culture (and beyond) is haunted by the ghosts of slavery and colonialism (which to us includes racism, capitalism, sexism, ableism…). How do we, those alive today, interact with and reckon with the violence, the terror, the loss, the repressions, and the shadows of the past as we weave together an understanding of our present and our future? In what ways is it liberative and healing to reckon with the ghosts of the past and in what ways are ghosts used by abusive systems of power to control us through fear of becoming like the ghosts? As our nights get longer, gather with us to discuss what we can learn from our social obsession with hauntings, zombies, witches, and the unacknowledged dark side.

Dialogue Notes:

These are rough, uncut, unfiltered, and anonymous notes taken at the dialogue. We get that these may not be very readable to those who were not in attendance at the dialogue, and, honestly, sometimes even to those of us who were. We still feel it is important to keep them available as part of our accountability process and for archiving and reference purposes.  Some of these notes have been digested/transformed into blogs.

Check-in 

  • Initially felt disconnected from the theme, but when started reading, realized I do feel haunted. Something from the past that feels undeniable. Always interested in witches.
  • Feel haunted by the religious tradition I was raised in, and ties to colonialism, remembering voices of missionaries that came to my church. Haunted by ways white women are implicated in maintaining state violence.
  • No Selves to Defend – Solidarity with Marissa Alexander
  • The haunting visible in geographies of cities – street names, etc
  • Haunted by my paternal grandfather, felt heavy as a kid, haunted by the silences – what is not said, childhood fear of being invisible/silenced/not existing, connected to abyss of conversations
  • Post traumatic oppressor syndrome – the effect of pushing down humanity, what it takes to continue turning away
  • Feeling legacies of state terror and resistance and the lack of knowledge of them, feeling it in the body
  • Only 20 generations since the witchhunts, easy to see how my trauma comes directly from father/grandfather/etc, thinking about intergenerational trauma going all the way back
  • What will anthropologists of the future think of us, “that was the beginning of the end” ie – less than half of babies are born naturally, that’s when humanity lost the ability to have babies without medical intervention.. How could they not see there was no turning back from that.. Haunted by the future
  • Struggles with capitalism, watching mental health impacts, check myself and idealism, trying to resist and live outside the system because “this is killing us” – trying to resist but then coming back to it – failure to survive outside the system
  • Legacies of assault, recovered memories, substantial effects of denial – ways I’m drawn to trauma in ways I don’t understand
  • Both of my parents are the only members of their families who are anti-theistic, strong split with their families, connected to my own coming into understanding of colonialism. Haunted by his trauma, seeing the ways my energy is funneled, seeing father’s clash of ideas, can’t get beyond it, seeing how his legacy is how i entered the work – positive haunting in a way
  • Haunted by family ties to confederacy, more currently, seeing silence at the dinner table, the racism that is one layer below the surface – that feels the most haunting
  • Seeing power and control over others, and lack of consciousness

Discussion Themes

  • Surprised by how much religion came up, I feel distanced enough from religion that I don’t have to think about it – but that’s exactly what haunting is
  • What animates me – is how to turn up the volume on things that are unsaid, endless denial and burying and silence in this country
  • Can’t heal the past until we acknowledge and make contact with the ghosts
  • Themes that become recurring, because they need to get worked out, needing catharsis
  • How does meeting our ghosts compare to encountering our own shadow side (shadow is a part of you that you don’t like. Collective shadows.. Leads to projection. Ways it contributes to othering other groups.
  • War on terror – the ways our country is always denying that it is the terrorist, always waging war on the terrorist, but the terrorist is in the house, it’s inside. Denying the ways we do torture.
  • Both light and shadow are things we fear. How do we move into both.
  • Thinking about Obama’s tenure in office, how it must be to be a Black man facing halls full of racism white men scowling at him, legacies of slavery and racism. And looking at the sexism of Hillary’s experience, how to keep that struggle going. How to not be haunted by the ghosts who say it’s inappropriate. “Lock her up” is a witch hunt. Remembering when he was elected, and the sheer glee and national pride of that moment when it was possible. We can look back now and see it as delusional, but the longing was not. The idea that we could find a redemptive path out.
  • State uses haunting to terrorize and control us, trying to point out what has happened is like trying to reclaim collective memories and the collective violence of the recoil back into denial
  • Ghosts and haunting are seen so negatively, so much fear, rather than seeing the opportunity of visitations
  • Creating rituals to invite the ghosts and witches and embrace the opportunity to change our relationship
  • Ancestral reckoning
  • Geography  – MacArthur – who was he – the names of people who exploited this land. The ways I orient to the land and orient others to me through these colonial names. Or through the erasure of indigenous people and that absence is haunting. But still streets and parks are named after them. Erasure of the relationship between the missions and the state. Even ways we reference Ohlone – was actually more groups. Not even using the names they used, only using the words we use for them. Mt Rushmore… too disturbing to stomach.
  • Zombies.
  • Watched several zombie movies. Ghosts are different. They have something to tell us. But what about zombies. What do they mean?
  • Discussed origin of zombies.. And referenced Wilentz article.
  • Zombie as worker metaphor.
  • Two anthropologists who write together (Kameroffs) – article on millennial capitalism. Workers cannot understand accumulation, building wealth.  Resurgence in Southern Africa of witchcraft, drawing parallels. Similar social changes that are happening. If you can’t understand how wealth is accumulated, the witch is stigmatized figure with an army of zombies. Young men can never come into sexual maturity because they can’t afford marriage. Can’t age through life stages. Blame the witch for the absence of wealth accumulation and lack of vitality.
  • Discuss Caliban and the Witch, history of the book origin – seeing in Africa and the capitalists coming in and trying to privatize land and targeting women through the lens of 16th c Europe.
  • Zombies are the monster that can’t speak, what are they saying is a fascinating question
  • Zombies are us, eating each other in capitalism, real or imagined scarcity
  • Or zombies as climate change, and the what we do when the machine stops
  • Society always crumbles very quickly, a big part of the fantasy is that all infrastructure breaks down
  • Compared to the robot apocalypse.. Word robot means compulsory labor in Czech. Robot as slave. Free labor. In this time of mass automation, robots are increasingly carrying out our labor.
  • Zombies as shadow of digital world. Nervous system deactivated. Humanity evacuated from the being. The re-animated corpse. Their entire purpose is insatiable exponential growth.
  • Zombie protests happening – protests against banks.
  • Zombie costume is the costume of everyday wear – you just wear your own clothes.  
  • Threat of being a zombie, devoid of consciousness, labor without grievance
  • The way that we see Nazis/fascists/Haitian dictator – his henchmen were called “zombies” – not uniquely evil – feel that as a progressive person is this world, always the zombies are coming for me
  • Trump is a zombie – damaged and unstoppable – going forward in this wake of destruction – zombifying systems
  • The movie where the zombie was brought back from the undead by love..
  • Another movie of post-post-apocalypse, zombies reanimating
  • Maybe the cure is the collapse – the desire to re-boot. Original zombie cure was easy – salt.
  • Somewhat hopeful to think that collective zombie obsession is a collective, though unconscious, recognition that something is wrong that needs to change.
  • Bees build prisons for beetles, because beetles are a pest that cause problems. And if they overpopulate, they start eating their own larvae. Hard to reconcile as a prison abolitionist.
  • Ways we idealize nature – but there is a lot of eating your own young, etc, in nature.
  • Earth is trying to rid itself us through a bacterial excretion. Epidemics, diseases, natural disasters. Large scale extinctions. Bees, coral reefs, dressing up as undead coral reef.. How do we as land mammals get haunted for those disappearances? Prairie dogs around Boulder.. Gone now. That is haunting.
  • Artist recording climate change. Recording sounds in forests.. Less lines, more silence.
  • This idea of deadening and apathy – how that plays out in relation – no matter how engaged we are, just being alive and in the system perpetuates the system.
  • The continued desire to procreate. Questions about the world and impact. Fear factor around aging. No other constructs in this country of how we take care of each other. The only way out of working forever is creating a work surrogate so you can stop. Brings it back to the witchhunts, which were instigated by workers refusing to reproduce the working class.
  • Talking to people with kids as someone who doesn’t want kids. They always ask, aren’t you afraid of being alone? No, I’m not. But apparently you are.. So normalized. We’re so insulted.
  • Rebecca Solnit – book about Arab Spring, how unpredictable it is, taking a principled stand always matters. Because sometimes it actually leads to a revolution. Always thinking is it strategic? Is it worth it? What will have the most impact? I want to believe that it just matters to do what I believe in. My life’s work is unlearning capitalism. Hard to imagine a world beyond it. If I had a kid, they might be able to get farther than me in imagining a world beyond capitalism. Not just reproducing the working class, also reproducing the imagination, moving it a step farther.
  • Seeing ourselves as ancestors of the future.
  • Interview with Craig Childs. Most likely, homo sapiens won’t show up in fossil records. We could destroy our species and many others, but will be forgotten by the earth.
  • If insects died, life on earth would perish in 50 years. If you took out humans, all life would flourish in 50 years.
  • Bees evolve, the viruses evolve, eventually bees putting us in their prisons.
  • Kids on edge and agitated, same kids that were calm and expressing brilliance just a year ago.
  • Overstimulation to the point of feeling immobilized/helpless
  • Mothers – holding long sticks with eyes – we see you, State. We’re looking back at you. We see what you say is unseen. Breaking spells of denial.

Closing – How are we breaking spells of denial?

  • Within sense of urgency, we start to think within models of scarcity. Thinking about how I incorporate joy into the work I do. Have said once I’m in the work, I’ll find joy. How do I create spaces for joy intentionally? The work becomes the way you live. Always space for art, music, dance. Consistently.
  • Less attachment, more laughter.
  • Recognizing when I need to step back to maintain my wellness, self-care, Finding community to talk about the hard stuff, Finding balance
  • Dance, being so involved in a physical way that I can’t think
  • Labor is so commodified, but liberation is also about connecting to the body, physically
  • Do things that don’t make sense, be irrational
  • Calm the nervous system
  • Don’t let logic of rationality and strategy always be in charge
  • Remember they have never wiped us out
  • Friendly ghosts – embrace ghosts, rethinking haunting, what would it be to invite friendly ghosts to inhabit my space more – listen

Suggested Readings:

  • Summary of Ghostly Matters
    • “In Avery Gordon’s Ghostly Matters, haunting is a method of sociological research.  She argues, “To study social life one must confront the ghostly aspects of it” (7). Ghostly Matters is her attempt to understand the complexities of social life through an analysis of the hauntings surrounding Sabina Spielrein, the desaparecido of Argentina and the lingering impact of racial slavery during the Reconstruction period in the United States…While a haunting can emphasize the disappeared, Gordon suggests it can also call our attention to that which lingers, as in the impact of racial slavery.”
  • WNC Book Notes/Key Ideas & Quotes from Ghostly Matters
    • “Haunting is a frightening experience. It always registers the harm inflicted or the loss sustained by a social violence done in the past or the present.”
    • The way Sabina haunts us “and the real famous men who haunted her” – acknowledges the ghosts of all the women whose ideas men stole, who were simultaneously denounced and pathologized. “It will be necessary to speak of ghosts and hauntings and crazy women and territorial dislocations.”
    • “When entire societies become haunted by terrible deeds that are systematically occurring and are simultaneously denied by every public organ of governance and communication… to broach, much less settle on, a firm understanding of this social reality can make you feel like you are carrying the weight of the world… ghosts return, demanding a different kind of knowledge, a different kind of understanding.”
  • A Zombie is a Slave Forever
    • “The zombie…is a New World phenomenon that arose from the mixture of old African religious beliefs and the pain of slavery, especially the notoriously merciless and coldblooded slavery of French-run, pre-independence Haiti…There are many reasons the zombie, sprung from the colonial slave economy, is returning now to haunt us…The zombie is devoid of consciousness and therefore unable to critique the system that has entrapped him. He’s labor without grievance. He works free and never goes on strike.”
  • Who Were the Witches? – Patriarchal Terror and the Creation of Capitalism
    • “The mysterious figure of the witch is key to understanding the creation of capitalism, the profit-motivated economic system that now reigns over the entire planet.”
    • “The author goes on to show how female sexuality, which was seen as a source of women’s potential power over men, became an object of suspicion and came under sharp attack by the authorities. This assault manifested in new laws that took away women’s control over the reproductive process, such as the banning of birth control measures, the replacement of midwives with male doctors, and the outlawing of abortion and infanticide. Federici calls it an attempt to turn the female body into “a machine for the reproduction of labor,” such that women’s only purpose in life was supposedly to produce children.”