Trançando (escre)vivências: significados do cabelo na construção da negritude.

Abstract

In the history of many Brazilians, hair is a bodily part that is the target of different experiences and sensations; it marks the subjects in their life history, because we live in a racist society crossed by the ideal of physical and cultural whitening. What does hair tell us about our society? When did hair become such a powerful mark that it has psychosocial effects on black people that can last a lifetime? What are the meanings of hair for black people? These questions arose from my own experience and the lives of other black people, generating the restlessness that guides this research. These questions will help us to think that, within a society structured by racism and sexism, hair defines places within the social order. In other words, racist and sexist stereotypes are produced, such as: the appearance of being suspicious or trustworthy, ugly or beautiful, masculine or feminine, exotic or civilised, elegant or sloppy, modest or sensual, hygienic/clean or sloppy/dirty, organised/centred or disorganised/unattentive, etc. As we separate the strands to make up the hairstyle we'll do at the end, we realise that hair is political. This research is a qualitative study carried out by many hands. Semi-structured interviews were carried out, i.e. this research has 13 stories about the relationship between hair and life from subjects with an average age of 30, who were given fictitious names of African origin. These names were not chosen at random, but were carefully thought out and related to the story told by the participants, whether it was their life story, a characteristic they said they liked or even related to their professions. The specific objectives were to understand the meanings that hair emerges in the process of becoming black; considering the social crossings such as: educational, family and work institutions and, based on the hair stories of the participants, to understand how hair racism operates, even in these spaces. Through thematic analysis, based on critical race theory, we analysed how hair contributes to and can be a way of constructing and maintaining blackness/black beauty in black subjects. Finally, we wrote about the unique meanings of hair for the people who were interviewed. We therefore consider that our hair can serve as a vehicle for the construction and affirmation of our blackness, especially in a positive way, capable of strengthening and structuring black people to resist the violence of racism.