Redefining the Identity of Black Women: "Natural" Hair and the Natural Hair Movement

This study examines young, Black women's hair practices and perspectives within the current wave of the Natural Hair Movement. Based on twelve in-depth interviews with Black women in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, this analysis uses Black feminist thought and standpoint theory to center the concept of "natural" hair and explore participants' relationships to it. The analysis is attentive to the ways family, peers, and media have influenced Black women's hair practices and perspectives, and grounds these in the history of racialized, gendered, and class-related perceptions of Black women's hair. My interviews reveal that "natural" has become such a desirable label that even Black women in this study who straighten their hair consider themselves "natural" due to the term's newfound subjective meaning. This indicates that the Natural Hair Movement has contributed to the rhetorical success of this label, even while its meaning has now expanded so broadly that it includes nearly every hair care practice other than chemical relaxing. While some may argue that this inclusive definition of "natural" dilutes an important cultural distinction between Afrocentric and Eurocentric hair practices, it may also indicate that these Black women seek not to be divided over hairstyle preferences but rather, seek a collective identity as Black women who are free to make informed choices on the basis of what is important to them.

Author

• Henderson, Amber Juatane

Language

• en

Keyword

• Black women
• African American women
• Natural Hair Movement
• Hair
• Black hair
• Natural hair

Date created

• 2015

Type of Work

• Master's Thesis

License

• All rights reserved

Rights statement

• In Copyright

GW Unit

• Sociology

Degree

• M.A.

Advisor

• Ken, Ivy

Committee Member(s)

• Deitch, Cynthia

Persistent URL

•  https://scholarspace.library.gwu.edu/etd/qn59q415v