Oriowo, D. (2019). Cocoa Butter & Hair Grease: A Self Love Journey Through Hair & Skin. Washington, DC. AnnodRight.
LOVE YOURSELF MORE DEEPLY from the hair on top of your head to the color that coats your skin!You’ve been told over and over that what you look like does not matter. That hair is just hair, and that all skin tones matter! It can be super hurtful and downright dismissive when the ones we like, love, and hold in high regard, dismiss what can often be a source of pain for us. Cocoa Butter & Hair Grease is for you if you have ever felt “some type of way” about your hair texture or skin tone.
Spellers, R. E. & Moffitt, K. R. (Eds.), Blackberries and Redbones: Critical Articulations of Black Hair/Body Politics in Africana Communities (p. 329-343). New Jersey: Hampton Press.
This text features engaging scholarly essays, poems, and creative writings that all examine the meaning of the Black anatomy in our changing global world. The body, including its hair, is said to be read like a text where readers draw certain interpretations based on signs, symbols, and culture. Each chapter in the volume interrogates that notion by addressing the question, “As a text, how are Black bodies and Black hair read and understood in life, art, popular culture, mass media, or cross-cultural interactions? The aptness of this work lies in its ability to provide a meaningful and creative space to analyze body politics- highlighting the complexities surrounding these issues within, between, and outside Africana communities.
Garrin, A. R. & Marcketti, S. B. (2018). The Impact of Hair on African American Women’s Collective Identity Formation. Clothing and Textiles Research Journal, 36(2), 104-118.
The Black Pride and Power Movements of the 1960s and 1970s changed the aesthetic of the larger African American community, promoting self-affirmation and reclaiming African pride. As individuals engaged in the movement, they began to internalize new meanings and understandings of themselves, leading to self-transformation and collective identity that promoted the specific political ideology and agenda of the group. In this research, the lived experiences of African American women who were emerging adults (ages 18–25) during the Civil Rights Movement from 1960 to 1974 were examined, through in-depth interviews, to understand their experiences with wearing natural hairstyles during this time. Seven participants highlighted how wearing natural hair was used in the three dimensions of collective identity formation: boundaries, consciousness, and negotiation. Participants’ counterhegemonic use of appearance constructed, created, and negotiated a collective identity that was aligned with demonstration for racial equality of African Americans.
Lewis-Elligan, T. (2010). Weaving Messages of Self-Esteem. In R.E. Spellers & K. R. Moffitt (Eds.), Blackberries and Redbones: Critical Articulations of Black Hair/Body Politics in Africana Communities (p. 329-343). New Jersey: Hampton Press.
Hair braiding has occupied a significant role among African Americans. For centuries African American girls have had their hair braided by their mothers, aunts, grandmothers, and other-mothers. Although there is a strong body of research that examines the role of hair in the construction of African American identity, few researchers have investigated the role of braiding in African American families. The purpose of this chapter is to examine how hair braiding can be utilized to promote conversations and learning for young African American girls about issues such as self-esteem, racial identity, health education, and the benefits of supportive communication between mothers and daughters. Each of these issues is known to have significant positive influences on girls as they enter adolescence and are challenged to negotiate peer relationships. The project was facilitated through several community-based workshops that trained mothers and daughters on hair braiding and provided a context for conversations about self-esteem. This chapter presents findings of the major themes that emerged from conversations during the workshops, as well as focus groups that were conducted at the conclusion of the workshop. The chapter concludes with a discussion about the implications of the findings of the research project and proposes a conceptual model of the role of hair braiding in promoting self-esteem and positive communication between mothers and daughters.
Norwood, C.(2018). “Decolonizing My Hair, Unshackling My Curls: An Autoethnography on What Makes My Natural Hair Journey a Black Feminist Statement.” International Feminist Journal of Politics, 20(1), 69-84.
There is unquestionably a buzz in US Black women’s communities about a trending “natural” phenomenon. Sales of chemical relaxers (sometimes dubbed “creamy crack” among the US Black community) have dropped 34 percent since 2009, while sales of “natural” hair care products that promise to non-chemically enhance or beautify “natural” curls are up exponentially. Corresponding to the rise in sales of “natural” hair care products are beauty blogs, YouTube instructional videos and supportive social groups—such as “natural hair” meet-ups, which have organically emerged for, and been mostly created by, Black women as a tool to support and nurture women as they take this journey. In this article, I use Black feminist P.H. Collins’s work because her understanding of the relationship between knowledge, consciousness and empowerment provides a framework or point of departure for grasping my own lived experience of going “natural” with regards to modes of oppression and methods of resistance.
Sekayi, Dia. (2003). “Aesthetic Resistance to Commercial Influences: The Impact of the Eurocentric Beauty Standard on Black College Women.” Journal of Negro Education. 72(4). 467-477.
The present study investigates Black women's perceptions of beauty, and how those perceptions are influenced through commercial means. A discussion of the literature on Eurocentric beauty standards and their impact on Black women is presented. Through a mixed-methodology of item survey, individual interviews, focus groups, and document review, the development of study's participants'(n = 219) standard of beauty is explored. The theory of aesthetic resistance emerges from the data. The implications of aesthetic resistance for education are discussed.
Spellers, R. E. (2003). The kink factor: A womanist discourse analysis of African American mother/daughter perspectives on negotiating black hair/body politics. In R. Jackson & E. Richardson (Eds.), Innovations in African American rhetoric (pp. 223–243). New York: Routledge.
Hair texture and skin tone as it relates to black women are at the focal point of this chapter. The central questions surrounding the discussion are “How do African American women disrupt and challenge dominant notions of the Black female body?” and “What are the implications, if any, associated with these acts of resistance?” In order to study this, researchers conducted interviews with 10 African American women to discuss these hair/body politics. From these studies came the kink factor metaphor. The kink factor metaphor comes from the term kinky in Black culture which refers to the tightly coiled or nappy texture of black hair. The kink factor metaphor clearly distinguishes the boundaries of living in a cultural space marked by warring dualism, a Eurocentric worldview and an Afrocentric worldview. There were 3 central themes came from these interviews; “kinky hair is a Black thing; kinky hair is nappy by nature; and kinky hair is a state of mine/mind.”
This study helped to view the struggle of African American females when negotiating Black hair/body politics through the lens of the actual participants. It allowed us to look at the tension experienced by African American women in a European world and the process and consequences of self-definition and self-valuation. As the text notes, “learning to love Blackness is an ongoing process,” and definitely something that will be a lifelong journey but much easier if we are able to learn from these types of studies.
Walker, Alice. (April 11, 1987). “Oppressed Hair Puts a Ceiling on the Brain.”
Ward-Phelps, R. & Laura, C. (2016). “Talking Back in Cyberspace: Self-love, Hair care, and Counter Narratives in Black Adolescent Girls’ YouTube Vlogs.” Gender & Education, 28 (6), 807-820.
While the ‘natural hair movement’ has grown in popularity and criticism, educational researchers have not attended to how Black adolescent girls with all textures of natural hair are navigating the implications of foregoing chemical alterations to their curl patterns. This article reports on an investigation of self-talk in 56 internet video logs constructed by Black adolescent girls with natural hair, describing the messages of self-love, hair care, and counter narratives to dominant discourse that emerged from an in-depth ethnographic content analysis. Hair politics may seem irrelevant to the field of education, but findings suggest that the topic should matter to anyone who cares deeply about the social and academic worlds of Black adolescent girls.
Weitz, R. (2001). Women and Their Hair: Seeking Power through Resistance and Accommodation. Gender and Society, 15(5), 667-686.
This article explores how women seek power through both resisting and accommodating mainstream norms for female hair and delineates the strengths and limitations of these strategies. The data help to illuminate the complex role the body plays in sustaining and challenging women's subordinate position, how accommodation and resistance lie buried in everyday activities, the limits of resistance based on the body, and why accommodation and resistance are best viewed as coexisting variables rather than as polar opposites. Finally, these data suggest the importance of defining resistance as actions that reject subordination by challenging the ideologies that support subordination.
White, S. B. (2005). Releasing the pursuit for bouncin’ and behavin’ hair: Natural hair as an Afro-centric womanist aesthetic for beauty. International Journal of Media and Cultural Studies, 1(3), 295–308.
The article takes a look at the parallels of the politics of colorism and hair and the caste system dynamics that are created around these issues from an Afrocentric Feminist perspective, emphasizing the origins within slavery as a byproduct of white supremacy and cultural hegemony. It discusses how the different forms of natural hair contrast with Eurocentric norms that Black women are subjected to despite being subjected to a standard that was not created for them. By delving into Afrocentric thought and the importance of African people defining their own histories and the fact that it is inextricable from emancipation and liberation, this author articulates why universal measures and standards are highly improper, particularly when they are Eurocentric and how it overlaps with Black Feminist thought and the emphasis on intersectionality and centering one’s experiences. There is qualitative analysis of women in a study on natural hair who show that for natural Black hair, beauty goes beyond aesthetics and focuses more on pride, inner-strength and spirituality and that there is a significant impact in people’s daily lives in how others perceive them and engage with them. This article, like others on this topic, demonstrates that the politics of Black hair in America are rooted in slavery, should be examined through the lens of Black Feminist thought, and is best discussed through the context of one’s own hair story and centering theory, research and other outside information with your own experiences. By discussing Afrocentrism, the author subtly gets into the problematic nature of using standards and who standards are created around, which can be applied to how people engage with texts and judge their validity. While this is peer reviewed, and thus scholarly, there are other texts with just as much validity that do not get accepted as academic whether by potential readers or institutions. While this article does add more information, there is also overlap of the other article examined.
Cochrane, C. (n.d.). “A Celebration of Natural Hair.” TEDxBeaconStreet.
Cheyenne Cochrane explores the role that hair texture has played in the history of being black in America -- from the heat straightening products of the post-Civil War era to the thousands of women today who have decided to stop chasing a conventional beauty standard and start embracing their natural hair. "This is about more than a hairstyle," Cochrane says. "It's about being brave enough not to fold under the pressure of others' expectations."