Hair, as it is fashioned in this research project, is a lens which brings embodiment, if only ephemerally, into a place of expressive focus. This thesis considers, as its subjects of research, women between the ages of 20 and 30 in Victoria, BC, Canada, who purposefully use the hair styling services of a regular stylist to negotiate social anxieties and play with possibilities of identity through the medium of hair. I engage with the concept of embodiment specifically in order to approach current theoretical concerns in anthropology with how commodity culture plays out and is played upon, both materially and ideologically, through the bodies of social actors. Hair is particularly well suited to a theoretical concern with embodiment because it is a biological medium of cultural pliability; it occurs at the interface of a biological entity, upon which it grows, and a cultural being, who styles it.

Thesis (M.A.)--Florida State University, 2005. / Advisor: Dr. William T. Lhamon, Jr., Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Dept. of American and Florida Studies. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed June 8, 2005). Document formatted into pages; contains iv, 35 pages. Includes bibliographical references.

This thesis aims to allow the meanings engendered by various black hairstyle choices to emerge as discursive texts with which to further explore issues of black identity in post-apartheid South Africa. It seeks to identify what, if any, new discursive spaces and possibilities are operational in the post-apartheid capitalist context, and how identities are moulded by, and in tum, influence these possibilities. Operating within a discourse analytic approach, this research did not intend to establish fixed and generalisable notions of identity, but by unpacking the discursive baggage attached to historically loaded subjectivities it is concerned with reflecting identity as an ongoing and reflexive project. Entailing a diverse selection of texts, the analysis includes self-generated texts (stemming from interviews, a focus group and participant observation), and public domain texts (stemming from online and print media articles). Chapters 5 - 9 constitute the textual analysis. Using a consumer hair care product as a text, chapter 5 serves as an introduction to discourses surrounding black hair as a variously constructed object. This focus is concerned, more specifically, with the construction of black hair as a 'natural' object in chapter 6. Chapter 7 examines black hair gemonies and the " problematic classification and de/classification of class and consumer identities. Discourses pertaining to the construction and positioning of gendered and sexual subjectivities are explored in chapter 8. Finally, chapter 9 is concerned with the operations of discourses as they function to construct essentialised or hybrid conceptions of identity. The implications for black identity construction in post-apartheid South Africa are discussed in chapter 10 alongside a deconstruction of the research method and researcher positioning.

In Rebekka Smudas (M. A.) gleichfalls (mikro-) soziologischem und intersektionalem Beitrag, Haarpraktiken von Brasilianerinnen mit krausem Haar als ‚Gestaltungsort‘? Ein Auszug aus Feldtagebüchern: Begegnungen im brasilianischen Haarstudio, kommt Migrationsphänomenen lediglich funktionale Bedeutung zu, als historischer Erklärungskontext für den eigentlichen Untersuchungsgegenstand: die rassistisch begründete, aber ästhetisch umcodierte Abwertung des ‚Kraushaars‘ (cabelo crespo) brasilianischer Frauen. Auf Basis einer Feldstudie in einem renommierten Haarstudio im brasilianischen Vitória und konzentriert auf die ‚Schwellensituation‘ vor Behandlungsbeginn, untersucht der Beitrag die schwierigen, individuellen wie schichtenspezifischen Wahrnehmungs-, Reflexions- und Identitätsprozesse, welche die jungen Frauen bezüglich ihres ‚natürlichen‘ Haares und seiner Korrekturmöglichkeit durchlaufen. Die Transformation von hässlich und negativ konnotiertem ‚krausem‘ in schönes ‚lockig-fallendes‘ Haar (cabelo cacheado) versteht der Beitrag so nicht nur als Destigmatisierungsstrategie individueller Frauen gegenüber haarbezogenen Erfahrungen von „Abwertung und Ausgrenzung“, die zur proklamierten polyethnischen ‚Brasilianität‘ höchst diskrepant sind. Er liest sie zugleich als Form einer emanzipatorischen ‚Agency‘ und eines weiblichen ‚Doing Gender‘, welche die interaktiven Herstellungsmomente geschlechtlicher Zugehörigkeiten und Identifizierungen auf der Grenze von ‚Race‘ und ‚Gender‘ enthüllt.