How paranormal investigators make sense of their experiences while hunting for ghosts

What is it about?

In the process of searching for ghosts in reportedly haunted locations, the members of paranormal investigation teams (colloquially called "ghost hunters") work together to make sense of sights, sounds, and physical experiences that occur during each investigation. Through their discussion of these events, they come to a collective understanding that frames certain experiences as evidence of the presence of ghosts while other experiences are dismissed as ordinary occurrences or misperceptions. Ultimately, one interpretation ascends as the account of what "really" happened during an investigation. This authoritative account is usually the one that is endorsed by powerful team leaders and aligned with a team's epistemology.

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Why is it important?

This article advances sociological understanding of the popular cultural phenomenon of paranormal investigating while also contributing to symbolic interactionist research on the collaborative construction of narrative accounts of reality. It offers a narrative development process that outlines how small groups develop a shared story of what "really" occurred in a given social situation, in this case a paranormal investigation.