In this special issue, Jennifer Leetsch and Pia Wiegmink, together with other BCDSS members and fellows, explore the intersection of life writing and dependency studies, examining how individuals subjected to strong asymmetrical dependencies—including slavery, captivity, indenture and coerced labor—narrated or were prevented from narrating their experiences. It foregrounds how personal testimonies, autobiographies and otherwise mediated life writing accounts reveal or obscure structures of power, subjugation and resistance. Drawing on case studies from North America, West Africa, the Caribbean, Central Asia, Mughal India and Tibet, contributors interrogate archival silences, editorial interventions and manifold processes of self-representation. By moving beyond the traditional slavery/freedom binary, this issue emphasises the complex interplay between dependency and autonomy in life writing. It brings to light the agency of (in)dependent individuals as relational and selffashioning subjects, navigating restrictive social structures across time and space.
The special issue features the following contributions by BCDSS members:
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"(In)Dependent Selves: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Life Writing, Slavery and Dependency: An Introduction" - Jennifer Leetsch and Pia Wiegmink
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"The Protocols of Dependency in Frederick Douglass' My Bondage and My Freedom (1855)" - Pia Wiegmink
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"A (Re)Construction of Self in Slavery, Freedom and Asymmetrical Dependency: The 1837 Autobiography of Samuel Crowther" - Mary Aderonke Afolabi
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"Community, Self and Dependency: Enslaved Voices in Moravian Lebensläufe (1747–1820)" - Josef Köstlbauer
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"'Runaway' Ads as Records of Life Writing: Ariadne's Story" - Amalia S. Levi
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"Wilhelm Joest, Early German Ethnography and Contemporary Approaches to Writing the Life of an Imperial Actor: An Interview with Wilhelm Joest's Biographer Anne Haeming" - Anne Haeming, Pia Wiegmink, and Jennifer Leetsch
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"Narrating Captivity—Narrating Oneself: The Report of Filipp Efremov About His Coerced Mobility in Central Asia (1774–1782)" - Elena Smolarz
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"The Eunuch and the Emperor: Social Ties and Selfhood in the Writings of Bakhtāwar Khān" - Emma Kalb
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"Imperial and Religious Dependency in a Twelfth-Century Tibetan (Auto)Biography" - Lewis Doney