Embracing natural hair

Abstract

This paper reports on the use of online blogs as spaces where Black South African women createsisterhoods and self-define. Using online blogs, the women learn about natural black hair, affirmblackness and resist hierarchal ideologies of beautiful hair. Whereas predominantly, existingstudies find that media representations of beauty and beautiful hair are defined via whiteness andthat Black women also participate in self-production in ways that suggest an acceptance of thehierarchy that locates Black looks at the margins, very little research has been done about Blackwomen who resist the hegemonic representation of and assumed superior status of white looksin general and flowing hair specifically. Drawing on two theories: whiteness and Africana womanism, and using purposive sampling, this study examined 17 qualitative interviews with Black South African women and Chocolate HairSisters, Natural Sisters, and FroChic three online blogs started by Black South African womenadvocating for natural hair. The findings indicate that online spaces have become sites of resistance, learning, positive Blackaffirmation, and support for and by Black women – sisterhood nets. In interviews, women narratedstories of how they had to learn to nurture and love their hair, something they were not taughtfrom an early age. The absence of knowledge about dealing with natural hair led women to theonline blogs where they found e-learning communities of sisters. This study’s focus is how socialhierarchies of appearance are contested online and overflow to offline spaces to affirm physicalfeatures of a race long-marginalised in social understandings of beauty.