Discriminating Spirits: Cultural Source Theory and the Human-Nonhuman Boundary

Ghosts symbolically represent the social recognition of a subject’s personhood as well as the legitimacy of that individual’s experience with inequality since many haunting narratives center grievance. Marginalized groups may be so oppressed that they do not warrant acknowledgement, thus protecting the distinctiveness of privileged groups. Nonhuman Animals, for instance, are much less likely to be recognized as ghosts, especially farmed species. To explore the relationship between oppression and the cultural visibility of other animals, this article revisits cultural source theory with a qualitative content analysis of 20 ghost anthologies. Results support human bias in haunting narratives.