The Way God Made You: Hair Texture and Identity among African American Women

• In Event: 390 - Section on Race, Gender and Class Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 06. Race, Gender, and Class: Media and Controlling Images

Abstract

In this paper I explain the unique significance of hair texture in the lives of African American women and relate its historical underpinnings to contemporary marginalization of women who choose to embrace their natural, unstraightened hair texture. Building on this foundation, I argue that these women, hereinafter referred to as “naturals,” maintain a self-image in which their hair plays a central role in order to navigate and cope with a social milieu that is often unsupportive or even hostile. Using data collected through various forms of social media, I detail how this identity is constructed and maintained. My analysis reveals that the “natural” identity is reflective of efforts to balance both a desire for self-acceptance in resistance to exclusionary Eurocentric beauty standards and a refusal to reject outright the social significance of feminine beauty. In this analysis I detail the ways in which the “natural” identity is learned, the practices through which this learning takes place, and how the rituals that reinforce a broader group identity helps to maintain the contemporary natural hair movement.

Author

• Nnenia Marie Campbell, University of Colorado-Boulder