James Garry
Supervisors
Professor Donna Heddle (Director of Studies), Director of the Institute for Northern Studies
Professor Ullrich Kockel (Second Supervisor), Professor of Creative Ethnology, Institute for Northern Studies
Lynn Campbell (Additional Supervisor), Programme Leader and Lecturer, Institute for Northern Studies
Research Title
Spectral Scotland: A Cultural History of Ghosts and the Supernatural, 1870–Present
Research Abstract
This project explores the cultural history of ghost hunting and the supernatural in Scotland from the late nineteenth century to the present, tracing continuities from early Spiritualist and psychical research circles to contemporary paranormal groups and digital media creators. It examines how organisers and creatives design, stage, and promote investigations, tours, and online content, analysing how ghostlore is curated across oral, archival, performative, and digital contexts.
Using the original conceptual framework of the reception thread, the study traces how specific ghost stories are transmitted and transformed through cycles of retelling and reinterpretation. For instance, the White Lady of Comlongon has travelled from oral tradition into archival record, was revived in Mostly Ghostly’s Haunted Highway tour, and now circulates as short-form digital media.
Fieldwork centres on five contrasting groups (Scottish Paranormal, Highland Paranormal, Ghostseekers Scotland, The Scottish Ghost Company, and Mostly Ghostly Tours), spanning commercial and voluntary models across urban and rural Scotland.
By combining archival research, including the School of Scottish Studies Archives, with ethnography, interviews with organisers, guides, and investigators, and digital analysis, this research unpacks how ghost traditions are mediated, performed, and commercialised in twenty-first-century Scotland, how authenticity is negotiated through belief, technology, and performance, and what ethical questions arise when haunted heritage is staged as entertainment. It contributes to folklore, heritage, and media studies by reframing ghost hunting as a dynamic form of cultural production situated within Scotland’s distinctive religious, historical, and mythic landscape.
Biography
James Garry is a Scottish folklorist and writer based near Edinburgh, and a part-time PhD researcher at the University of the Highlands and Islands. He holds an MLitt from 麻豆直播, where his dissertation on folklore, fakelore and the folkloresque in Scotland’s dark tourism first introduced the ‘reception thread’ concept that underpins his doctoral research, as well as degrees from the Universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh.
He is also Assistant Director of the Cockburn Association, Edinburgh’s civic heritage and amenity society. His research interests include Scottish ghostlore, second sight and early modern folk belief, cunning folk, landscape and liminality, dark tourism, and digital folklore. His article on ghostlore and vernacular authority on social media is forthcoming in the Review of Scottish Culture. James also writes folklore-inspired fiction. ‘The Boundary’ won first prize in The Fairtales’ Inheritance Prize, ‘The Grey Singer’ was a runner-up in Fairy Tale Magazine, and ‘The Ragman’s Ledger’ has been chosen for a dramatic reading at Liars’ League’s Halloween event in London.
Further stories are forthcoming in Space & Time, MockingOwl Roost, and Lemon Jelly Press’s anthology The Forest Knows the True Beast.
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