'Oe! My Hare Gaan Huistoe': Hair-Styling as Black Cultural Practice

Erasmus, Zimitri

doi:10.2307/4066147

Cited by 17 publications

(11 citation statements)

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“…I found a scarf that I could use to cover my hair in order to conceal my hair type. Historically race was partly determined by hair texture so, although the apartheid ‘pencil test’ 4 no longer exists in practice, ideologically my type of fine and straight hair is associated with colonial racism (Erasmus, 1997). By covering my hair it was not immediately obvious what type of hair I have and was therefore one less source of hierarchical difference between myself and research participants.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

In support of situated ethics: ways of building trust with stigmatised ‘waste pickers’ in Cape Town

Perez

2017

Qualitative Research

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To a large extent, conformity to rigid principles continues to constrain a more situated approach to research ethics. Although this means deception is seen as something that should be avoided at all costs, I found that covert aspects of my ethnographic study enabled me to minimise the inequality between researcher and research participants. This article explores my use of situated ethics in interactions with street ‘waste pickers’ during fieldwork in Cape Town using participant observation. I opted to wear a hidden recorder and obtain selective consent, which I argue was more appropriate than relying solely on a fieldnote journal or obtaining signatures on a written consent form. These methods enabled me to communicate respect and build trust. The implication is that a contextualised approach to ethical procedures can be better suited to sensitive research topics, with marginalised social groups, where there is extreme inequality between researchers and their research participants.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

In support of situated ethics: ways of building trust with stigmatised ‘waste pickers’ in Cape Town

Perez

2017

Qualitative Research

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“…It is a signifier (Tate 2009), a 'physical manifestation of our being that becomes loaded with social and cultural meaning' (Banks 2000, p. 26). In a society structured along racial lines, it is therefore no surprise that hair is attributed racial, as well as cultural, social, religious and political meanings (Byrd and Tharps 2014a;Dabiri 2019;Erasmus 1997;Ifekwunigwe 1999). Hair is central to constructions of Black style (Mercer 1994;Tulloch 2004;Tate 2009) and, amongst other things, is perhaps best understood as a form of what Khanna (2011) calls 'racial symbolism'.…”

Section: Black Hair: Symbolism Resistance and Controlmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘If Your Hair Is Relaxed, White People Are Relaxed. If Your Hair Is Nappy, They’re Not Happy’: Black Hair as a Site of ‘Post-Racial’ Social Control in English Schools

Joseph-Salisbury

Connelly

2018

Social Sciences

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A growing body of literature examines how social control is embedded within, and enacted through, key social institutions generally, and how it impacts disproportionately upon racially minoritised people specifically. Despite this, little attention has been given to the minutiae of these forms of social control. Centring Black hair as a site of social control, and using a contemporary case study to illustrate, this article argues that it is through such forms of routine discipline that conditions of white supremacy are maintained and perpetuated. Whilst our entry into a 'post-racial' epoch means school policies are generally thought of as race-neutral or 'colorblind', we draw attention to how they (re)produce and normalise surface-level manifestations of anti-Blackness. Situating Black hair as a form of 'racial symbolism' and showing Black hairstyles to be significant to Black youth, we show that the governance of hair is not neutral but instead, acts as a form of social control that valorises whiteness and pathologises Blackness.

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“…Other scholars in cultural studies have suggested that black hair is socially constructed through cultural and political practices that are imbued with social meaning and interpretation in the act of being worked upon (Mercer, 1994;Erasmus, 1997;Art Africa Magazine, 2007). According to Mercer (1994), certain hair styles, such as Afros and dreadlocks, increasingly became signifiers of radical political and cultural identities, because these styles were seen to contest white dominance politically and culturally.…”

Section: Codifying the Citymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…19 The proliferation of culturally and politically loaded protests at schools previously reproduced as culturally 'white', also signaled challenges to racialized and colonial constructions of what constitutes beautiful hair and 'cleanliness' for black women. The assertion of a bold black aesthetic and cultural order in spaces and institutions historically foreclosed to the majority black population, precipitated a crisis of 'racial meanings' (Erasmus, 1997), which apartheidera compulsory urban segregation and institutionalized racism had sought to consolidate (Mabin, 1991;Bonner et al, 2001. The school-level disruptions resonated with protests occurring at the same time at South African universities across the country, calling for the decolonization of these institutions.…”

Section: Codifying the Citymentioning

confidence: 99%

Woza! Sweetheart! On braiding epistemologies on Bree Street

Matsipa

2017

Thesis Eleven

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African hair braiding on Bree Street offers a glimpse into how immigration, black female sexuality and shifts in urban retail economies provide important economic and cultural resources to urban residents and users. As both ontology and epistemology, black hair braiding practices recalibrate local economies, spaces, and aesthetic codes, and thus co-constitute emergent urban identities and a way of knowing the city. The intimate, networked, and fractal nature of black hair braiding spaces disrupts the rigid colonial spatial orders of the city and its architecture. As an epistemology, braiding disrupts the grand narrative of Johannesburg in ‘crisis’, while also disrupting the colonizing and gendered structure of urban studies itself.

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'Oe! My Hare Gaan Huistoe': Hair-Styling as Black Cultural Practice

Cited by 17 publications

References 0 publications

In support of situated ethics: ways of building trust with stigmatised ‘waste pickers’ in Cape Town

In support of situated ethics: ways of building trust with stigmatised ‘waste pickers’ in Cape Town

‘If Your Hair Is Relaxed, White People Are Relaxed. If Your Hair Is Nappy, They’re Not Happy’: Black Hair as a Site of ‘Post-Racial’ Social Control in English Schools

Woza! Sweetheart! On braiding epistemologies on Bree Street

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