“HAIR IS IT, FOR AFRICANS:” African-Australian Hair Stories

Abstract

This thesis examines the relationship African-Australian men and women have with their hair. Through open-ended interviews with seven African-Australian men and women, aged 22-63, this thesis analyses the cultural significance of hair and its methods of stylization in the African-Australian diaspora. Building upon empiricism and scholarship from the United States and Britain, this thesis broadens the debate by including the voices of African-Australians. It explores the highly ritualized modes of black hairstyling practices in Australia as intra-racially disciplined, managed and contained. I examine Afro-diasporic hair practices of weaving, braiding, and going ‘natural,’ through established frameworks that psychologise and depsychologise black hair practices. This thesis problematises academic and socio-cultural arguments that situate Afro-diasporic women who choose to process their hair as engaged in ‘inauthentic’ practices engendered by self-hatred, low self-esteem, and the desire to be white. I explore the gendered nature of Afro-diasporic hairstyling, and the significant burden of representation placed upon African-Australian girls and women to perform culture on behalf of the African-Australian diaspora. Finally, this thesis examines the industrial and personal economy of black hair as imbricated with the explicit and implicit labour of African-Australian identity.