Contested Identities: African Diaspora and Identity Making in a Black Hair Salon

• In Event: 1483 - Open Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 18. Immigration and Experiences of Racism in the United States

Abstract

When discussing how race, class, gender, and nationhood intersect to shape identities, experiences, and structural inequalities, most sociological literature constructs these categories as homogenous. Certain categories become master statuses-- such as black or immigrant. However, recent scholars have begun to question the complexities of these categories, arguing that context is important. In this paper, I provide an empirical case for understanding how identity categories we consider to be stable are contested. More specifically, I show how black womanhood is contested in fashionable labor exchanges by drawing on citizenship in contemporary America at a time when both blackness and immigrant status are marginalized. Women engage in the politics of defining Black-womanness for themselves within a white patriarchy by drawing on condemnatory stories about African American women and black immigrant women, ultimately sustaining gendered racial hierarchies.

Author

• Nicole Jenkins, University of Nevada-Las Vegas