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Don´t Touch My Hair
Emma Dabiri
FREE Delivery in Ireland
Description for Don´t Touch My Hair
Paperback.
'Groundbreaking . . . a scintillating, intellectual investigation into black women and the very serious business of our hair, as it pertains to race, gender, social codes, tradition, culture, cosmology, maths, politics, philosophy and history' Bernardine Evaristo
Straightened. Stigmatized. 'Tamed'. Celebrated. Erased. Managed. Appropriated. Forever misunderstood. Black hair is never 'just hair'.
This book is about why black hair matters and how it can be viewed as a blueprint for decolonisation. Over a series of wry, informed essays, Emma Dabiri takes us from pre-colonial Africa, through the Harlem Renaissance, Black Power ... Read moreand on to today's Natural Hair Movement, the Cultural Appropriation Wars and beyond. We look everything from hair capitalists like Madam C.J. Walker in the early 1900s to the rise of Shea Moisture today, from women's solidarity and friendship to 'black people time', forgotten African scholars and the dubious provenance of Kim Kardashian's braids.
The scope of black hairstyling ranges from pop culture to cosmology, from prehistoric times to the (afro)futuristic. Uncovering sophisticated indigenous mathematical systems in black hairstyles, alongside styles that served as secret intelligence networks leading enslaved Africans to freedom, Don't Touch My Hair proves that far from being only hair, black hairstyling culture can be understood as an allegory for black oppression and, ultimately, liberation.
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Product Details
Publisher
Penguin Books Ltd
Place of Publication
London, United Kingdom
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 2 to 4 working days
About Emma Dabiri
Emma Dabiri is a teaching fellow in the African department at SOAS, a Visual Sociology PhD researcher at Goldsmiths and author of the Sunday Times bestseller What White People Can Do Next and Don't Touch My Hair. She has presented several television and radio programmes including BBC Radio 4's critically-acclaimed documentaries 'Journeys into Afro-futurism' and 'Britain's Lost Masterpieces'.
Reviews for Don´t Touch My Hair
Emma Dabiri's groundbreaking Don't Touch My Hair is a scintillating, intellectual investigation into black women and the very serious business of our hair, as it pertains to race, gender, social codes, tradition, culture, cosmology, maths, politics, philosophy and history, and also the role of hairstyles in pre-colonial Africa
Bernardine Evaristo
The Times Literary Supplement Books of the Year ... Read more
FASCINATING, educational, personal, humble and engaging. I urge you to read it!
Marian Keyes I've been pleasantly engrossed this autumn in Emma Dabiri's nonfiction debut Don't Touch My Hair. Part memoir, part spiky, thoroughly researched socio-political analysis, it delves deep into the painful realities and history of follicular racism
Diana Evans
Observer Books of the Year
Both a richly researched cultural history and a voyage to empowerment.
Colin Grant
Guardian
Sensational
Women's Health
Pulled together with meticulous research, Don't Touch My Hair is an unmissable read by a writer who's set to become a household name
Francesca Brown
Stylist
The first book from one of Ireland's brightest literary talents, Don't Touch My Hair brilliantly deconstructs western views of everything from beauty to social value systems, and even to our understanding of time, all through the lens of how African cultures value hair.
Hotpress
Groundbreaking...Her sources are rich, diverse and sometimes heartbreaking. Some books make us feel seen and for me, that is what Don't Touch My Hair does. I would urge everyone to read it
Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff
Guardian
An excellent and far reaching book...a call to arms for black African culture
Irish Times
A powerful and arrestingly relatable account of the rich history of Afro hair that seamlessly interweaves her personal perspective with meticulously researched historical facts
Metro
Dabiri's brilliant book recognises that black hair - particularly women's hair - is charged with social and racial significance
Tank
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