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Johanna Lukate, "(Dis)Entangled: Black Hair, Race, and Identity" (Coronet, 2025)
00:45:42
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- [00:00]
A
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- [01:07]
B
Welcome to the New Books Network. We have the pleasure to welcome Johanna Locate to present her new book, Disentangled why Black Hair Can't Be Just hair, published in 2025 by Coronet. Johanna Locate is a research group leader at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity. Her research focuses on social identity and social category categorization processes, migration, embodiment and belonging, with a focus on the African and black diasporas in Europe. My name is Dr. Hannah Poole, Senior researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of societies. Welcome, Dr. Lucato.
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C
Thank you.
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B
To begin with, would you like to introduce yourself to our listeners?
- [01:59]
C
Yes, of course. I'm a social psychologist by training. I also studied cultural sciences a long time ago. And as you just beautifully said, my main interest is in identity. I'm really interested in how identity is expressed through the body and in particular, how we use hairstyling and what different hairstyles have to say about who we are, who we want to be, and who we can be.
- [02:30]
B
And before we enter our conversation, what is hair?
- [02:36]
C
Well, that's an interesting question. It's a part of our body. So if you think about it biologically, right, like it's a part of our body, 99% of humans have hair. But unlike other mammals, we don't have fur. Like, our hair is mainly concentrated on the head. And then we have some body hair, but, yeah, not as much as other mammals. Now, I guess the interesting thing is, for me as a social psychologist or social scientist, how that hair, like, what it. What it looks like, the. The texture, the color, the length, and whether it curls like the curl pattern, how that has been vested with social meaning, and how people interpret different hairs or hair textures and hair colors in different ways.
- [03:37]
B
And then what inspired you to do research on hair and then actually write an entire book about it?
- [03:45]
C
A couple of things come to mind. So the first one is that from a very young age, I was interested in questions around identity. I always wondered who we are, like, as a human, how do we know who we are? And then more specifically, how do other people see us? And how does that shape how we see ourselves? And I think I've been thinking about that question ever since I've been a small child. And it's kind of like stuck with me. And that's why at first I wanted to, or at first I studied cultural sciences because I wanted to see would I find an answer to my question. And I didn't. So then I moved into psychology. And in psychology, you have all these topics around the self identity, intergroup relations, intergroup marginalization. And all these topics had something to say about identity and how we form our identity through the way that others perceive us, what others say to us, and also through what we think others think about us. So meta perceptions, basically. But as I was studying psychology, there was a point where I was a little frustrated with the way that psychology was taught to me. I think I was particularly interested in ethnic identity and racialized identities, but it felt that psychology and psychological research often flattened those identities. So if people were participating in a study, they ticked. They tick a box and. And they say, I am white or I'm black, I'm Asian. And perhaps if it's a more recent study, they would be allowed to tick multiple boxes to account for, like, more complex or mixed identities. But even then, I felt that there's so much more nuance to what it means to be black or what it means to be Asian, what it means to be white than is captured by that label. And somehow I felt that psychology falls really flat in accounting for that nuance and that heterogeneity. When I was studying psychology, around that same time, I was involved with a network in Germany called Krauserlocke, and it was founded by two young women in Germany, and they were they were inspired by something called the natural hair movement. Now, the natural hair movement is more of a global movement, and maybe we'll talk about it a bit more later. And it inspires black people to embrace the natural texture of their hair. I need to take a step back. Why did I say this? A lot of black people or people with Afro textured hair either chemically straighten their hair, wear a wig or wear weaves. The reason for doing that are multifaceted. And it has a lot to do with time management. It has financial reasons. But part of the reason is also how curly and Afro textured hair is perceived by the wider society. And so the natural hair movement was encouraging black people to no longer engage in those practices and to happily embrace their natural hair. And what these two women were doing was founding a network specifically for Germany. Now, it was meant as a more inclusive network. I would say it was inviting parents of children with curly hair to be part of it. If, for example, they wanted to learn how to look after their children's hair, their partners were invited. So it was really kind of like a really cool community. But one thing that stuck with me was that every time when I traveled back from England, where I was studying, to Germany, and I found myself in the community again, there was so much talk about how, for example, some people were straightening their hair because they felt that it allowed them to be seen as German. Or there was a lot of talk about how the color of your skin and the texture of your hair both kind of like work together to determine how other people perceive you. And so I felt if then a psychologist comes and asks you some study, or has you participated in some study and asked you to tick at the end this box, all of that nuance, like what we know about colorism and texturism, is kind of like lost. And so, yeah, I think as much as I enjoyed everything that I was learning about what psychology has to say about identity, I felt that there was so much more that we need to know as psychologists. And so there was one night I was sitting in my college in Cambridge. I was doing PhD applications, and I had this project I was working on, but I was a bit frustrated with it. I was like, I don't really buy in. My heart wasn't in it, basically. And I was like, I wish I could do a project on hair. And so I don't know, it must have been. I was dark. I remember it was dark. And I was like sitting in the library and I just, you know, I've just wrote you down. I Was like, let me just put down, like, a proposal, like, what it would look like. And so I just sent it off to, like, one of the supervisors I wanted to work with and was like, what do you think about this? And she loved it. And so I was kind of surprised, but also very much relieved because I was like, wow, okay. It's not just me who thinks there's something to be said about hair. And so I proposed a project that looks at what black women do with their hair and why. And I proposed it as a comparative study between England and Germany because I felt that there is. Well, I was studying in one country and living in the other because of that. I noticed how what it means to be black or mixed race in each of these contexts varies. One reason that I could that or one obvious reason is that in Germany, we don't really talk about race at all. If there's a differentiation between people at the official level, it's usually between Germans, Germans with a background of migration and foreigners. But there's no further breakdown. Now, in the English or the British context, racialized identities are much more incorporated, like you have in a school context. People might identify you as black or mixed race on the census. They have all these ethnic and racial categories. So there's a different way in terms of how people see themselves and how they are positioned by ethnic racial categories that are used in everyday life in the British context. And so I think part of me also wanted to understand if that makes a difference in terms of how the women see themselves and possibly what they do with their hair because of how they identify or are identified by others.
- [10:22]
B
Thank you. Then what does your research look like in concrete terms? How can we imagine the way that you collect data, you analyze it, and derive theoretical patterns or explanations from it?
- [10:37]
C
Psychology, how I was taught it is a lot about surveys, studies, experiments. But I guess I had one course on social issues which was much more qualitative. And the idea that we were told there was that if you're trying to understand a new phenomena or something that hasn't been fully studied, it makes sense to start qualitatively. So I guess realizing that there's a lot that we know about identity and how people form an identity in childhood and then how they may transform it in hues and how it changes over the life course, I still felt, because I'm trying to understand identity formation in a population that hasn't been given a lot of attention in psychology, I wanted to do a qualitative project also because I felt that these labels Right. Like, if I was to do an experiment, those labels, they're flattened, and I wanted to exactly understand what happens beyond that label, like, what's in that label. And so a lot of my research is qualitative. It's. I work with interviews, I work with ethnography, I work with images. Now, specifically for that project, I did qualitative interviews where I met with women. Once. I also did a couple of expert interviews with, like, hair influences, social media influencers. I spoke with hairdressers. Those were usually like one off interviews where we sat down from anywhere from half an hour to two hours and had a conversation. And I would say they're like semi structured in the sense that I had a couple of questions, but the order of the questions might change depending on what my interlocutor was telling me. Just so that it kind of feels more like a natural conversation and not so much like I'm sitting there with my paper and I want to stick to it at all costs and somehow it makes. Yeah. For this, like, unnatural conversation. And then I did ethnography because I also wanted to understand, for example, the role of hair saloons in the women's hair care routine, but also in how they see themselves and possibly also in the way that hair saloons shape what we see as beautiful. Like, I think there's a lot of talk between the hairdresser and the client while they're sitting in the chair. Especially, for example, if you get braids, that takes hours. So it's not like you're coming in and you get a quick haircut and then you're off, but you might sit there for four hours, six hours, eight hours. So there's a lot of time for conversation, of course, and for talking about. A lot of that talk is about hair. I mean, it's also about other things, but also about hair. And so I just wanted to get a feel for some of this. And so the interesting thing for me was, and in my book now, I kind of like, I did this thing where I said this white hair saloons, but I use a gap where the word white would stand because I realized that oftentimes in conversations, even in conversations with black and mixed race women, it would be like, yeah, so they're the hair solutions, but I can't go there. And what they're actually saying is like, these are hair saloons that mainly cater to people with straight or wavy hair textures. If someone with a very tightly coiled hair texture was to enter the hair saloon, and in all likelihood they would be told that the hairdressers cannot do the hair texture or cannot cut the hair texture or style it. And the reason for that is that historically, up until a couple of years ago, hairdressers were not trained to style or cut or groom curly or let alone coily hair textures. So it's simply a lack of skills in a hair saloon. And so the differentiation was always between Afro hair saloons or curly hair saloons, which are specifically for people with the kind of like Afro hair texture or any kind of curly hair texture. And I think one of the interesting things for me was that in comparison to what I call the kind of like empty space hair saloons, the mainstream hair saloons, I feel like you don't wait a long time. You come in, you have an appointment, most of the time you get your haircut and you leave. And in the Afro hair saloons that I spend a lot of time, and I noticed that there's something which I call the waiting public. And there's usually a lot of people who will wait there for a long time. And sometimes they're not even waiting for a hairdresser, but they've just come in for the community. And especially around lunchtime in some. Yeah, in some places that I was, where I spent time in the Hair Salute, people would just come in over lunchtime to kind of like have a chat with the hairdressers or a friend that was currently sitting there, and they would eat their lunch and then they would take off again. And so also because the hairstyles take so long, for example, if a parent brings in their child, they might have to wait a long time. So they're sitting there for a couple of hours waiting on their child, or they might go run some errands and then pick the child's back up, depending on the age. And if the headdresser is comfortable with this, if the child is comfortable with it, of course, lots of things going on. But yeah, so there's usually always a bench or something. And there's a lot of people sitting on that bench waiting and while waiting, having conversations. And so as a, as a researcher, I basically joined that waiting public. And for example, one thing, if we're talking about methodology that I noticed in the beginning, I bought my, like, a small little notebook and I was taking notes on everything that was going on. Right. Like, who comes into the salon, who's talking to whom, what's happening? But the notebook people, it really. People picked up on that. They were like, what are you doing? Why are you taking notes? And so the Moment that I declared myself as a researcher, and especially a researcher from the University of Cambridge, it shifted the whole atmosphere in the salad. It was like, first of all, it was like, oh, you can do that kind of research at Cambridge, that's impressive. But also the having a researcher there really meant that people had different conversations. They wanted to have conversations with me now as a researcher. They wanted to tap into kind of like my knowledge. They wanted to know what I know, what I've already found out. And that meant that I was no longer finding out what I wanted to study. So one thing that was omnipresent at the Hair Salutes were mobile phones. Everyone had their phone out constantly sending messages. Voice message wasn't a thing at the time, but like, sending messages, sending emails, or replying to messages. They were looking up things on YouTube, they were sharing videos or being like, have you then tried this recipe? Like, look here, I found this. Have you tried that? And so I started taking notes on my phone. And from that moment on, I kind of like, blended in. And so, of course, if, for example, I wanted to interview someone, I would still declare myself as a researcher. But there was something to be said in terms of not always being the first thing to introduce myself as a researcher because it shifted the atmosphere so much and then I couldn't observe it anymore. So for the ethnography, oftentimes I tried to be a participant first for a while before becoming a researcher. So then other than the hair saloons, I spent time at hair events because of the natural hair movement. At the time, there were a lot of natural hair events. So it could be at a hair salon, could be at various community spaces, even, like big fairs at hotels where hundreds of people would come and there'd be showcase companies showcasing their products and whatnot. So there are a lot of ethnographies also at those events. And then, yeah, I did some things with, like, big data, like social media data. And for the book, I looked at, like, Google Trends data to understand, for example, how certain ideas in the sense of hashtags. So I use basically the idea that, like, hashtags can tell us something, or certain search terms on Google can tell us something about how an idea travels. And so I was interested, for example, how this idea of natural hair spreads over time, but also how it spreads globally. And so if I was looking at the metadata of those search terms in terms of, like, when were people searching and where were people searching? So the geolocation, and then I mapped that onto the world to kind of like, see how search behavior has changed over time and what that can possibly tell us about people being aware of the natural hair movement, people being interested in it. So that's kind of like the other side of my research. And that was just to, I guess, corroborate or triangulate some of the things that I was hearing in interviews especially, I usually ask people, like, what do you think where the national hair movement originated? How long has it been around? And I wanted to kind of like have some more data on that other than what people felt or what their own impression was. And so then there, the social media data and the Google translator was quite helpful to kind of like triangulate between the interviews and the data.
- [19:46]
B
Thank you so much for setting the scene of your research. Now, turning to your book. And in this book, we actually meet many people who speak with great openness with you about their relationship to their hair. One of them, for instance, is Shannon from California. And she describes to you how closely hair and professionalism are linked. Can you tell a bit more about her and her story, but then also what you took away from your conversations with her and others regarding how people actually navigate hair in professional settings?
- [20:23]
C
Yeah, Shannon is an accountant in California, and we had a remote conversation, not just because of the global pandemic which was happening at the time, but also just because of the distance. And you're right, we had a very frank and open conversation about what she does with her hair and why. Now Shannon talks about why she wears wigs to work and why she only changes her wigs every three to four months. Basically about the same frequency that people would probably go to the hair saloon. So if you were to change, I don't know, like go from a longer haircut to a shorter haircut, or you change something about your hair color, it's the same frequency. And because of that, people don't really notice that she is rotating wigs rather than changing something about her natural hair. And now Shannon grew up in the United States, she's working in the United States, and she felt that because of how the US American society sees black people and the way that natural Afro textured hair is stigmatized in the US American society, she does not want to go to work with her natural hair. Now, that assumption is not completely unfounded. The Perception Institute did a research study a couple of years ago in the United States, and they found that both white women and black women are biased towards natural Afro textured hair in the sense that they see it as less beautiful, less attractive, and less professional. And that's that's the key thing. So one main difference in that study was that while white women might be both explicitly and implicitly biased, black women have an implicit bias. So even though they might in conversation say, oh, I think natural afro textured hair is so beautiful, they're implicitly biased against it. Why is that important? Because, for example, when it comes to something like a performance review, if you feel that person is less professional, that might lead you to think, oh, they're also less competent. So maybe you're reviewing them less favorably because of some implicit perception that you have because of the way that they present themselves to you in their everyday life. And so because of findings like these, Shannon's assumption is more completely unfounded that people might look at her differently if she were to show up with her natural hair. And yeah, so every. Every three to four months, she changes her. Her hairstyle and her or her week. And she also. I think what was interesting was how the COVID 19 pandemic changed that for her. So because before you have this, and I mean, this is true for a lot of people, you have the distinction between your home and your workplace. And your home is kind of like where you're in. It's the. But we always say, like, you're in the privacy of your home and you're kind of like, free to do what you want. But during the COVID 19 pandemic, like a lot of other people, Shannon was forced to work from home. And so now doing a lot of video calls, she felt that she had to, or she wanted to keep up the same appearance that she has when she goes to the office, meaning that she had to wear her wig at home, which you normally wouldn't do. Like, basically coming home for her was like, she can take the wig off and she can let her natural hair out, and, yeah, she can just be comfortable. But now she had to wear that wig at home. And I think that was. Yeah, it was interesting. Kind of like also emotionally, how that changes your relationship to your home and kind of like the safe. Because you no longer or you now have to kind of like engage in that performance. In a sense, it is a performance that you're putting on for your colleagues at work. Yeah.
- [24:30]
B
Thank you. And these relationships that one has to have also translate into relationships between people. For instance, between parents and their children, but then also romantic partners. What did you hear and learn about that?
- [24:47]
C
Absolutely true. I want to say, I think the relationship that you have with your parents is special, right? Because when you're a child, you're usually too young. There's a point where you're too young to take care of your own hair. So your parents are basically the first. Or some caregiver might not be your parents, but some caregiver could be a sibling, could be an auntie, could be a neighbor, is usually the first person who. To take care of your hair. And there's a point in your life where you start taking on responsibility for your hair. And in a. In a way, that moment where you're taking over responsibility can be one where you have more choice about your hair. Now, you also mentioned romantic relationships. And it's interesting because I guess we have the workplace, which is one of those. Yeah, it's like it's a market, right? Like it is a market, and you're kind of like competing with others for certain roles or certain job. And in sociology, we say the same about dating. It's a market, and you're competing with other people in that dating market for a partner. Or that's one way how we could see it. I mean, there's probably other ways, but because of that, it means that. Or one thing that's taught to us, it's that to attract a partner, you want to be attractive. Right. And now if you go back to that study, one of the things that they found, natural affiliate hair is seen as less attractive. Not just less professional, but also less attractive. So that gets us kind of like to the romantic relationships. So one thing I learned was that in terms of thinking about being seen as attractive by a romantic partner or. Yeah. Finding a partner for a lot of especially young women meant that they thought a lot about what to do with their hair and whether others would see their hair as attractive. And I think it's also one way how we learn about that people might perceive us differently. So there's this. Yeah. When you're a teenager, probably, like 13, 14, 15, all of a sudden, either people of your own sex or another sex become attractive to you, and you notice that people start having their first romantic relationships. And for a lot of the women that I talked about that I talked with, one realization was that they were kind of like, left out of that dating game. And so that, for many, was the first moment of realizing that, or like an additional moment. Not a first, but an additional moment of realizing that you perceive this differently and you're possibly perceived as less attractive. And so that's one of the, I guess, crucial moments where a lot of them thought about what to do with the hair and possibly how to change their hair. So that they would also be seen as attractive as their peers who were engaged in romantic relationships. Now, that's not everyone, but that's some experiences. However, I think the particular experience that you're trying to get is Maria and Joker, who I wrote about in the book. And that for me, it was a very special conversation. So for one, my doctoral research was only with women. But for the book, let me say it this way, in between basically finishing my PhD research and starting to write a book, I did a lot of hair workshops. And at one of the hair workshops, it was an inclusive workshop that invited people of all genders. And through that workshop, I really realized, okay, men and queer identified people also have hair stories. And they're different in some ways. They're different from the women's stories that I had already collected. And so I was like, if I'm going to write a book, I want it to be an inclusive book. I want it to be a book that goes beyond women's hair stories. And so in this one case, for the book, I interviewed Maria and Joker, and I interviewed them together. They're a couple. And the interesting thing, and probably one of the first times also for me to hear that, was a couple talking about how they take care of each other's hair and how they become involved in each other's hairstyling process and routine. And I think it creates a very kind of special intimacy because, yeah, I mean, there's a lot of insecurity, there's a lot of vulnerability around hair, and especially around black hair. And I mean, if we talk about something like wigs or weaves, there's always this element of concealing your own natural hair texture and of not letting people see it. And that also goes onto romantic relationships. I mean, I've had conversations with people who have never shown their romantic partner their natural hair. So for years, if not decades, definitely in a relationship with someone who does not know what the natural hair texture of their partner looks like. And I guess Maria and Joker were talking about the very opposite of really letting their partner in on the hair, right? I mean, Joker helps Maria Braith her hair. A part of the reason was that she usually braids her hair herself. And she wants it to look very meticulous and she needs straight lines. And because she can't do it herself in the back or it's very difficult to get him straight, it's great that he can help her kind of like separate the hair and make sure it all looks neat and straight. But still, I think there's this. Yeah. This incredible intimacy in sharing that with your partner, knowing that for a lot of black people, hair is something that they want to hide from their partner because they think, oh, maybe my partner will not see me as attractive if they know what my natural hair looks like. So, yeah, I love the contrast. Yeah.
- [30:58]
B
And it's extremely insightful. You dedicate an entire chapter to the topic of hair and swimming. Why is this topic so central?
- [31:09]
C
Black people drown disproportionately more often than white people. We don't know that for Germany because we don't have the statistics, but we do know it for the United Kingdom, and we know it for the United States. We also know for these places that black people are much less likely to know how to swim. So a lot more black people do not learn how to swim compared to other people in the United Kingdom or in the United States. And I guess the question I was pursuing was whether hair and hair styling plays a role in why so many black children and teenagers do not learn how to swim. And because of that, they are at a greater risk of drowning them because they do not have that life skill, AKA swimming. In some ways, I want to say that the chapter I wrote in the end tells a little different story. It's more a story of the structural reasons of why black communities are disenfranchised from aquatics and from water and from swimming. And I want to say that hair plays a role, but probably not as big a role as we might think. It plays a role in the sense that, for example, if you wear braids with extensions, if you wear a weave, then you cannot just go into the water because it takes so long to dry. So if. If you. For example, if you think about school, sports, and you go swimming, then you have what, like five to maybe 15 minutes at the end to dry your hair fully. But to dry Afro textured hair, like, even in its natural state, depending on how thick your hair is, takes a couple of hours. That's why a lot of black people have something called a hair day. So Saturday or Sunday is dedicated to doing the hair. And it means to wash the hair, to comb the hair, and then to style the hair so that it can last the whole. The rest of the week. Because it's so, like, it takes so long. Even the combing takes, like, a long time. And you'd have to do it in sections. And so that's. Then the hair gets braided or cornrowed, and you have that style for the rest of the week until the next weekend. You have another Hair day. That's not really compatible with going to swimming, especially going to swimming in a potentially cold climate where if you go outside, you can't go outside with wet hair because it puts you at a greater risk of getting ill. So I guess in that sense, hair plays a role. Another way was, and I talk about this a bit in the opening of the chapter, there's a company that created swim cap specifically for people with a lot of hair. And it was specifically for people with locks and braids, but also Afro textured hair, which is just oftentimes a lot thicker and it does not fit under a regular swim cap. And basically they tried to get permission for swimmers to use that cap at swim competitions. And the International association for Swimming FINA said no, because they believed that there was no swimmer who had a need for that kind of cap. And so I guess that kind of like speaks to the more systematic and almost racist biases in terms of people being unaware that there are people with certain head textures, which either because of the texture of the hair or because of the hairstyle that they wear because of the texture of the hair, means they have a real need for that cap because it allows them to fit that neatly fit their braids under the cap and then they can participate in swimming. Now, I guess for the chapter, I also spoke with a lot of a couple of athletes and swimmers who perform at the highest level. So like Olympic swimmers, worker swimmers. And one thing I noticed in those conversations is that often if you swim at that level, hair takes a backseat. And maybe understandably so, because the priority is to be a world class swimmer. So a lot of swimmers shave off all their body hair just to reduce resistance in the water. But that's the extreme end, right? I think if we're thinking about just school kids going to swimming lessons, they will not shave off their body hair. They just want to learn how to swim. And in that moment, probably, yes, if your hairstyle means that you cannot dry it by yourself or in the time that you're given, then perhaps you're not participating in swim lessons. But yeah, I think there are also the other, the most structural reasons in terms of. And I have to say I found that fascinating. I learned so much through that chapter. It's one of my favorite chapters because it taught me something new, something that I wasn't aware of. And especially in the United States, there was a time where people of all, basically all people were swimming together because swimming pools were gender segregated. And so there were swimming pools for men and swimming pools for women. And in these pools. But they were. They were mixed in terms of ethnicity and race. But then there came a time where they've decided to create pools where men and women can swim together, Kind of like keeping families together. But in that moment, because of fears over white women swimming in the same water as black men, or probably the other way around, they were afraid of black men swimming in the pool. Same with white women. They've decided to racially segregate swimming pools and beaches and access to any water sports. Now, that meant black people in the United States no longer could access swimming pools like the regular swimming pools. They were now exclusively to white people. And at the same time, a lot of cities failed to put money or funds into creating swimming pools in neighborhoods that were predominately black. And so because of that, several generations of black people lost access to swimming pools, did not learn how to swim. And now this is where psychology comes in again, because it's oftentimes the fear of parents who do not know how to swim themselves that keeps them from allowing their children to participate in swim classes. So their own fear of drowning means they're more afraid that their children will drown during swim classes than to realize that their children might are probably more likely to drown because they're engaging in some kind of, like, for them, risky behavior by wanting to go, I don't know, swimming in a lake. Like their friends not realizing that they don't know how to swim and that they might put themselves in life threatening danger. So, yeah, so that for me, understanding kind of like the structural reasons and the systemic reasons was really interesting and really fascinating. Beyond all the hacked conversations that were also really interesting.
- [38:05]
B
You already touched upon the structural issues. And in your book, you write about the system of power and beauty that becomes visible through hair. You even call it systems of beauty and power.
- [38:19]
C
One thing that comes to mind for me when I think about systems of beauty and power is the way in which there seems to be a dominant beauty ideal that a lot of people subscribe to. And that beauty ideal favors light skin. It also favors straight or wavy hair textures over curly and coily afro textured hair. And I think I call it a system because it is so pervasive. It's what you like if you open a beauty magazine, or at least maybe, maybe it's changed a little bit now. But like 10 years ago, 15 years ago, definitely like 30 years ago, open a beauty magazine and the people that you see would fit that beauty ideal. Now it's not just the beauty magazines, but it's what you see or who you see on tv, it's who you see. Yeah, probably like in a lot of public functions. And that's kind of like what I mean by a system that links a certain appearance in a way that it grants you more power because you are in more powerful positions or, yeah, you're given that kind of, like, visibility. And at the same time, it's so. It's so powerful because this whole group of people who does not see themselves represented, like, yeah, they opened a beauty magazine and they don't see themselves in the women that they're seeing there. They turn on the TV and there's no one that looks like you, or at least even if they have a similar skin color, they often do not have your hair texture because the hair is straightened or they wear a weave or a wig. And so I think that's part of that system of beauty and power that, I mean, that I talked about in the book.
- [40:20]
B
Well, then maybe my almost last question to you would be whether there's something that you would like to add, something that surprised you, something that you learned throughout this research project and then the book writing journey that you would like to share.
- [40:40]
C
Well, we already talked about the swimming, which for me was really surprising in its richness, in its complexity, in the way that relates to hair, but also so much the way it has so much to say about society as well and how societies are structured and how it leads to exclusion and inclusion. So that for me was, yeah, something really surprising because it was also new. I guess the one thing that I was probably already thinking at the beginning of the writing process, but I kind of like that. I feel much more strongly about now is that realization that everyone carries a hair story. And I think I remember when I. When I made the decision that I wanted to include male and genderqueer hair stories in the book, and before I started writing, oftentimes I had a conversation. People were like, yes, of course, I tell my hair story. I have a hair story. Like, and then I started reaching out to men, and the most common thing I heard was like, oh, actually, I don't have a hair story. I always keep my hair short. And I felt like, there's so much power already. Like, so much. There is a whole story in that sentence. I always keep my hair short. Like, why? Why for, I don't know, 30, 40, 50 years of your life, have you kept the same hairstyle? Is that really all just about convenience? I mean, probably not, because it means you have to go to the hair saloon every Two weeks. Or like, you have to shave your hair every other day or every day if you keep it bald. Like, what is the story behind that? When did you learn to keep your hair that short? Why are you still keeping it that short? What kind of conversations did you have around hair that taught you that men have short hair? And, yeah, I think that that was such. So, so intriguing that. That response, the moment where I was like, can you actually tell me her hair story? And the feeling like, oh, I actually don't have a hair story because I always kept it short. And me thinking, no, that that is the story. Like, there is so much that you can tell me about that, and I think that is actually true whether or not you're black. I think everyone has a hair story, and maybe we're not realizing it as much, maybe we've not thought about it as much, but we all have that story of, in terms of learning things about how to keep your hair, why does certain hairstyles look more professional than others? And where do these ideas come from? They come from somewhere. It's not like they're out there somehow, and we're learning them, we're internalizing them. We're incorporating them in our everyday life. And that's true for everyone. And so I think, yeah, that for me, was really one of the main learnings from writing that book that everyone carries a hair story.
- [43:31]
B
Thank you so much, Dr. Johanna Locatel. This has been fascinating, and it's great to know that your book Disentangled why Black Hair Can't Be Just Hair is now out in bookshops. Thank you so much.
- [43:45]
C
Thank you so much, Dr. Poole. It was a pleasure.