Don't touch my hair - Emma Dabiri

'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 and 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.