{"id":56879,"date":"2019-05-03T13:30:17","date_gmt":"2019-05-03T13:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=56879"},"modified":"2019-05-03T13:32:04","modified_gmt":"2019-05-03T13:32:04","slug":"dont-touch-my-hair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=56879","title":{"rendered":"Don’t Touch My Hair"},"content":{"rendered":"

Don’t Touch My Hair<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Allen Lane<\/a> (an imprint of Penguin)
\n2019-02-05
\n240 pages
\nHardback ISBN: 9780241308349
\nEbook ISBN: 9780141986296<\/p>\n

Emma Dabiri<\/strong><\/a>, Teaching Fellow SOAS<\/em>; Visual Sociology Ph.D. Researcher, Goldsmiths<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Despite our more liberal world views, black hair continues to be erased, appropriated and stigmatised to the point of taboo. Why is that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Recent years have seen the conversation around black hair reach tipping point, yet detractors still proclaim ‘it’s only hair!’ when it never is. This book seeks to re-establish the cultural significance of African hairstyles, using them as a blueprint for decolonisation<\/a>. Over a series of wry, informed essays, the author takes us from pre-colonial Africa<\/a>, through the Harlem Renaissance<\/a>, Black Power<\/a> and into today’s Natural Hair Movement<\/a>, the Cultural Appropriation<\/a> Wars and beyond. We look at the trajectory from hair capitalists like Madam CJ Walker<\/a> in the early 1900s to the rise of Shea Moisture<\/a> today, touching on everything from women’s solidarity and friendship, to forgotten African scholars, to the dubious provenance of Kim Kardashian’s<\/a> braids.<\/p>\n

The scope of black hairstyling ranges from pop culture to cosmology, from prehistoric times to the (afro)futuristic<\/a>. Uncovering sophisticated indigenous mathematical systems – the bedrock of modern computing – in black hair styles, alongside styles that served as secret intelligence networks leading enslaved Africans to freedom, Don’t Touch My Hair<\/em> proves that far from being only hair, black hairstyling culture can be understood as an allegory for black oppression and, ultimately, liberation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Despite our more liberal world views, black hair continues to be erased, appropriated and stigmatised to the point of taboo. Why is that?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1295,1649,11,8,17],"tags":[28979,573,13842,28980],"class_list":["post-56879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-africa","category-anthropology","category-books","category-media-archive","category-monographs","tag-allen-lane","tag-bob-marley","tag-emma-dabiri","tag-hairstyles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56879"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56879\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57497,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56879\/revisions\/57497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}