Black Hair as Battleground: Black women educators, embodied colonization, and disembodied voyeurism

• In Event: AERA Poster Session Thursday 4:15pm
  In Poster Session: Critical Examination of Race, Ethnicity, Class, and Gender Poster Session

Abstract

This paper examines Black hair as a powerful site of intersectional discourse for Black women educators. Drawing on BlackCrit and Black methodologies, I argue that Black hair functions as a racial marker for Black women and specifically explore what I call embodied colonization and disembodied voyeurism. Both function as antiblack arms of the educational institution and beyond. The stories exchanged with seven Black women educators during moisturized and wrapped healing circles reveal the necessity of acknowledging hair as part of the intersectional conversation. Black women educators experience and navigate surveillance, stereotyping, and colonial standards of beauty and professionalism, and part of this work is to acknowledge how hair is used and can be used as a political tool.

Author

• Eghosa Obaizamomwan-Hamilton, Stanford University