Entrenched Coloniality? Colonial-Born Black Women, Hair and Identity in Post-Apartheid South Africa

ABSTRACT

In precolonial Africa, hair played an important role in how Africans conceptualised identity, beauty, status, spirituality and cultural pride. With the advent of slavery, colonialism and apartheid, African hair became the object of ridicule, racialisation and inferiority. The Eurocentric ideal of beauty became dominant in African women’s perception of ‘self’ and ‘identity’. For many women in apartheid South Africa, it became a way of acceptance into the European consciousness and to access social, cultural and economic privileges that colonialism and apartheid reserved for whiteness. Do the vestiges of colonial-apartheid and the Eurocentric constructs of beauty and identity persist among those who grew up and lived through apartheid now that South Africa is a free country? Through a theoretical lens of postcolonial discourse of race and identity, this study explores colonial-born Black women’s (aged 47 to 83) opinions about hair and identity in post-apartheid South Africa. It seems their perceptions remain fixed in the Eurocentric standard.

KEYWORDS:

• hair
• apartheid
• race
• identity
• Black women
• South Africa

Acknowledgements

The financial assistance of the National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIHSS), in collaboration with the South African Humanities Deans Association (SAHUDA) towards this research is hereby acknowledged. Opinions expressed and conclusions arrived at are those of the authors and are not to be attributed to the NIHSS and SAHUDA.

Disclosure statement

No conflict of interest was declared by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Janell Le Roux

Janell Le Roux holds a PhD from the University of Limpopo in South Africa and is a senior lecturer in the department of communication, media and information studies at the University of Limpopo in South Africa.

Toks Dele Oyedemi

Toks Dele Oyedemi is associated with the department of communication, media and information studies at the University of Limpopo in South Africa. He holds a PhD from the University of Massachusetts in the United States.