Hair Stories: Black Women’s Narratives About Life, Identity, and the Politics of Hair

• In Event: Black Girlhoods

Abstract

The phrase “It’s just hair” is not familiar to many Black women. While it is easy to dismiss hair as a trivial, personal matter, doing so would be a huge mistake. Hair has always been, and remains, both a personal and public matter for us. It’s a part of a broader language of appearance shaped by individual expressions of self and the embodiment of society’s expectations, norms, and conventions. Black women’s experiences with our hair offer deeper meanings, providing insights into our daily struggles, trauma, and marginalization, as well as how we survive, thrive, and generate joy in the mundane, seemingly routine aspects of our everyday lives.

As part of a larger dissertation project, this paper examines Black women’s hairstyling practices and preferences to explore how we make sense of and navigate the interconnections of race, gender, and social class in our everyday lives. This study utilizes a collection of in-depth, narrative-style interviews with working-class Black women in the Chicago area to explore how they navigate and make sense of the social, political, and personal dimensions of hair in their everyday lives. Drawing on Black feminist and phenomenological frameworks, preliminary analysis suggests four key themes: natural hair journey; gendered racial identity; practicality, convenience, and maintenance; and the politics of beauty and appearance. These themes reveal the nuances and complexities of Black women’s hairstyling decisions, offering a deeper understanding of our everyday lives and demonstrating the importance of Black women’s subjectivity in research. Data analysis is ongoing.

Author

• Sha' Kurra L Evans, University of Illinois-Chicago