A Review of Alexandr Davydov, Pavel Abramov, Etnografiya tufty: kto i kak pishet zakaznye raboty v Rossii [The Ethnography of a Scam: Who Writes Commissioned Essays in Russia, and How They Do It]. Moscow: Social Research Support Fund “Khamovniki”; Common Place, 2021, 176 pp.

Abstract

The book tells about the market for educational ghostwriting in Russia and about its participants, called scriptors. The authors themselves also participate in this activity, and address this topic through their own experience in a form of autoethnography, and through other people’s experience in interviews. The interviews and personal experience of the authors demonstrate the motives for entering this industry, the peculiarities of working in it, the pragmatics of commissioned ghostwriting, the formation of small groups and communities of scriptors, and their social trajectories within the industry and after leaving it. The authors also describe the structure and functioning of commercial associations of scriptors of various types, such as cooperatives, marketplaces, etc. A special place is given to the connection between scriptors and universities, as well as how exactly Russian universities determine the emergence of such а type of income as academic ghostwriting. Unfortunately, for all the interest of the material, and the significance of the first attempt to describe the field of Russian academic ghostwriting, the book is written rather haphazardly, and its elaboration lacks structure.