ABSTRACT
This chapter is an exploration of the profession of an academic ghostwriter. Academic ghostwriting constitutes quite a large industry worldwide, even though not a lot of information can be found on the people providing as well as making use of this service. The establishment of agencies, which act as intermediaries between ghostwriters and clients, foremost provide payment security for the former and guarantee anonymity for the latter. Based on an autoethnographic interview, a ghostwriter lets us in on their professional experiences as well as the tensions, contradictions, feelings, and vulnerabilities that emerge through such ghosted work. Touching upon issues of the legality and ethicality of this job, on problems surrounding academia as critiqued through Black Feminist Theory and Feminist scholarship, as well as on the application of post-qualitative methodology, this autoethnographic interview resembles becoming-research by elucidating how researchers emancipate themselves through always-already being one with their research practices and topics.
