Numéro

Vol. 48 No 3 (2023): Afrique et développement

6 - She is so Pretty, Look at her Hair’: Perspectives on the Racialisation of Mixed- Race Persons in Ghana

https://doi.org/10.57054/ad.v48i3.5320
Georgina Yaa Oduro
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Cape Coast, Ghana
Karine Geoffrion
 Département d’anthropologie, Université Laval, Canada
Mansah Prah
University of Cape Coast, Ghana

Corresponding Author(s) : Georgina Yaa Oduro

gyoduro@ucc.edu.gh 

Afrique et développement, Vol. 48 No 3 (2023): Afrique et développement

Résumé

S’appuyant sur les résultats d’une plus vaste étude qualitative multisite qui a exploré les expériences vécues et la construction identitaire des personnes ghanéennes « mixtes » vivant au Ghana et au Canada, cet article interroge les processus de racialisation de la couleur des cheveux et de la peau des Ghanéens « mixtes » dans le contexte spécifique du Ghana. Renseignées par les théories de race et de racialisation, nous soutenons que la politique capillaire ne peut être discutée sans tenir compte de la manière dont la couleur de la peau et le genre contribuent également à façonner la catégorisation raciale des personnes « mixtes » au Ghana. Nous montrons comment la société ghanéenne désigne comme « autre » et racialise ces Ghanéens (par exemple, par le biais de réglementations scolaires sur la chevelure et la coiffure) ; comment ils et elles naviguent à travers le regard, les discours et les pratiques raciales autour de leur corps ; comment ils et elles reproduisent et défient les considérations et les imaginaires racialisés ; et comment ils et elles interprètent leurs propres identités raciales à travers leur chevelure. Nous relions ces récits aux idéaux d’hégémonie raciale blanche qui imprègnent la société. Reconnaissant les expériences de privilège des Ghanéens « mixtes », nous soutenons que l’évaluation de leur blancheur par la population majoritaire n’est pas simple et ne conduit pas les individus « mixtes » à s’identifier comme blancs. Les Ghanéens « mixtes » ont plutôt des expériences fluides en termes de privilèges et de discrimination basées sur le contexte et les interactions.

Mots-clés

cheveux Ghana identités « mixtes » racialisation couleur de peau politique identitaire blancheur colorisme genre intersectionnalité
[1]
Yaa Oduro, G. et al. 2024. 6 - She is so Pretty, Look at her Hair’: Perspectives on the Racialisation of Mixed- Race Persons in Ghana. Afrique et développement. 48, 3 (mai 2024). DOI:https://doi.org/10.57054/ad.v48i3.5320.
Télécharger la référence bibliographique
Endnote/Zotero/Mendeley (RIS)
BibTeX
Les références
  1. Agyeman, E.A., and Amoako-Gyampah, A.K., 2019, 'Cross-Cultural Ties between Ghana and Egypt: The Agency of the Egyptian Community in Accra, Ghana', African Human Mobility Review, pp. 1637.
  2. Ahmed, S., 1999, ‘She’ll Wake Up One of These Days and Find She’s Turned into a Nigger’: Passing through Hybridity', Theory, Culture & Society, Vol. 16, No. 2, pp. 87–106.
  3. Akyeampong, E., 2006, 'Race, Identity and Citizenship in Black Afric: The Case of the Lebanese in Ghana', Africa, Vol. 76, No. 3, pp. 297–323.
  4. Akyeampong, E., 2004, 'Memories of place and belonging: identity, citizenship, and the Lebanese in Ghana' Ghana Studies, 7(1), pp. 25-42.
  5. Alubafi, M.F., Ramphalile, M., and Rankoana, A.S., 2018, 'The Shifting Image of Black Women’s Hair in Tswane (Pretoria), South Africa', Cogent Social Sciences, Vol. 4, No. 1, review article 1471184.
  6. Ampofo, A.A., 2004, 'Mothering among black and white non-ghanaian women in Ghana', JENdA: A journal of culture and african women studies, (5).
  7. Asante, G., 2016, 'Glocalized whiteness: Sustaining and reproducing whiteness through ‘skin toning’ in post-colonial Ghana', Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, Vol. 9, No. 2, pp. 87–103.
  8. Bauer, J.J., and McAdams, D.P., 2000, 'Competence, relatedness, and autonomy in life stories', Psychological Inquiry, Vol. 11, pp. 276–279.
  9. Banks, I., 2000, Hair matters: beauty, power, and African American women’s consciousness, New York: New York University Press.
  10. Blay, Y.A., 2011, 'Skin Bleaching and Global White Supremacy: By way of Introduction', Journal of Pan African Studies, Vol. 4, No. 4.
  11. Bilge, S., 2010, 'Recent feminist outlooks on intersectionality', Diogenes, Vol. 57, No. 1, pp. 58–72.
  12. Bilge, S., 2020, 'The fungibility of intersectionality: An Afropessimist reading', Ethnic and Racial Studies, Vol. 43, No. 13, pp. 2298–2326.
  13. Chapman, Y. M., 2007, ‘I am Not my Hair! Or am I?’: Black Women’s Transformative Experience in their Self Perceptions of Abroad and at Home, Master’s thesis, Department of Anthropology, Georgia State University.
  14. Charles, C., 2012, Skin Bleaching: The Complexion of Identity Beauty, and Fashion. The Meaning of Dress, SSRN, 18 June, https://ssrn.com/abstract=2372176.
  15. Chin, E., 2015, Commodity Racism, in The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Consumption and Consumer Studies, https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118989463.wbeccs049.
  16. Craig, M., 2002, Ain’t I a Beauty Queen: Blacks Women, Beauty and the Politics of Race, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  17. Crenshaw, K., 1989, 'Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: A black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics', University of Chicago Legal Forum, Vol. 8.
  18. Daniel, G.R., Kina, L., Dariotis, W.M., and Fojas, C., 2014, 'Emerging paradigms in critical mixed race studies, Journal of Critical Mixed Race Studies, Vol. 1, No. 1.
  19. Darkwah, A., and Adomako Ampofo, A., 2008, 'Race, Gender and Global Love: Non-Ghanaian Wives, Insiders or Outsiders in Ghana?' International Journal of Sociology of the Family, Vol. 34, No. 2, pp. 187–208.
  20. Dione Rosado, S., 2003, 'No Nubian knots or nappy locks: Discussing the politics of hair among women of African descent in the diaspora. A report on research in progress', Transforming Anthropology, Vol. 11, No. 2, pp. 6–63.
  21. Dosekun, S., 2020, Fashioning postfeminism: Spectacular femininity and transnational culture, Urbana-Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press.
  22. Ellis-Hervey, N., Doss, A., Davis, D., Nicks, R., and Araisa, P., 2016, 'African American Personal Presentation: Psychology of Hair and Self-Perception', Journal of Black Studies, Vol. 47, No. 8, pp. 869–882.
  23. Erasmus, Z., 1997, ‘Oe! My Hare Gaan Huistoe’: Hairstyling as Black Cultural Practice', Agenda: Empowering Women for Gender Equity, Vol. 32, pp. 11–16.
  24. Fanon, F., 2008, Black skin, white masks, New York: Grove Press.
  25. Freeman, M., 1993, Rewriting the self: History, Memory, Narrative, New York: Routledge. Gonzalez-Sobrino, B., and Goss, D.R., 2019, Exploring the mechanisms of racialisation beyond the black–white binary, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Vol. 42, No. 4, pp. 505–510, DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2018.1444781.
  26. Hall, S., 2007, It’s time for foundation, in Sims, J. M., ed., Mixed heritage: identity, policy and practice, London, UK: Runnymede Trust, pp. 24–25.
  27. Haritaworn, J., 2009, 'Hybrid Border-Crossers? Towards a Radical Socialisation of ‘Mixed Race’’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Vol. 35, No. 1, pp. 115–132.
  28. Hirsch, A., 2019, Brit(ish): On Race, Identity and Belonging, New York: Vintage Publishers.
  29. Ho, C.G.Y., 2012, Living in liminality: Chinese migrancy in Ghana, PhD dissertation for University of California, Santa Cruz.
  30. Hochman, A., 2019, Racialization: a defense of the concept, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Vol. 42, No. 8, pp. 1245–1262, DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2018.1527937.
  31. Hunter, M., 2007, The Persistent Problem of Colourism: Skin Tone, Status and Inequality, Sociology Compass, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 237–254.
  32. Johnson, T.A., and Bankhead, T., 2014, ‘Hair it is’: Examining the Experience of Black Women with Natural Hair', Open Journal of Social Sciences Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 86–100.
  33. Joseph-Salisbury, R., and Connelly, L.J., 2018, ‘If your hair is relaxed, white people are relaxed, if your hair is nappy, they are not happy’: Black hair as a site of ‘post- racial’ social control in English Schools, Social Sciences, Vol. 7, No. 11, p. 219.
  34. Lever, J.T., 1970, 'Mulatto Influence on the Gold Coast in the Early Nineteenth Century: Jan Nieser of Elmina', African Historical Studies, Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 253–261, doi:10.2307/216216.
  35. Madlela, K., 2018, Black Hair Politics: The Representation of African Women in True Love Magazine Front Covers and Hair Advertisements, PhD thesis, Department of Visual Arts, Faculty of Humanities, University of Pretoria.
  36. Mahtani, M., and Moreno, A., 2001, 'Same Difference: Towards a More Unified Discourse in ‘Mixed Race Theory’’, in Parker, D. and Song, M., eds, Rethinking ‘Mixed Race’, London, UK: Pluto Books, pp. 65–75.
  37. Mercer, K., 1987, 'Black Hair/Style Politics', New Formations, No. 3, pp. 33–54.
  38. Miles, M.B., Huberman, A.M., and Saldana, J., 2013, Qualitative data analysis: A methods sourcebook, 3rd ed, Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.
  39. Nyamnjoh, F., and Fuh, D., 2014, 'Africans Consuming Hair, Africans Consumed by Hair', Africa Insight, Vol. 44, No. 1, pp. 52–68.
  40. Netshia, S., 2017, The Power of Hair: The Politics of Hair in a (South) African Context, http://ipip-project.eu/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/The-power-of-Hair.pdf, accessed 9 December 2021.
  41. Omi, M., and Winant, H., 1994, Racial Formation in the US: From the 1960s to the 1990s, New York: Routledge.
  42. Paragg, J., 2015, ‘‘Canadian-first’: Mixed race self-identification and Canadian belonging’, Canadian Ethnic Studies, Vol. 47, No. 2, pp. 21–44.
  43. Paragg, J., 2017, ‘‘What are you’: Mixed-Race Responses to the Racial Gaze’, Ethnicities, Vol. 17, No. 3, pp. 277–298.Patton, T.O., 2006, African American women and their struggles with beauty, body image, and hair, National Women’s Studies Association Journal, Vol. 18, pp. 24–51, doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2354.2006.00387.
  44. Phoenix, A., 2014, 'Colourism and the politics of beauty', Feminist Review, Vol. 108, pp. 97–105.
  45. Pierre, J., 2008, ‘‘I Like Your Colour!’ Skin bleaching and geographies of race in urban Ghana’, Feminist Review, Vol. 90, pp. 9–29.
  46. Pierre, J., 2013, The Predicament of Blackness: Postcolonial Ghana and the Politics of Race, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
  47. Rocha, Z.L. and Yeoh, B.S., 2021, Hierarchies of mixedness: Hybridity, mixed-race racisms and belonging for Eurasians in Singapore, Ethnic and Racial Studies, https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2021.1921235.
  48. Senghor, L.S., 1966, 'Negritude: A humanism of the twentieth century', in Grinker, R.R., Lubkemann, S.C. and Steiner, C.B., eds, 2010, Perspectives on Africa: A reader in culture, history and representation, Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 629–636.
  49. Storrs, D., 1999, 'Whiteness as stigma: Essentialist identity work by mixed-race women', Symbolic Interaction, Vol. 22, No. 3, pp. 187–212.
  50. Thomas, T., 2013, ‘‘Hair’ They Are: The Ideologies of Black Hair’, The York Review, Vol. 9, No. 1.
  51. Thompson, C., 2009, 'Black women, beauty, and hair as a matter of being', Women’s Studies: An Inter-Disciplinary Journal, Vol. 38, No. 8, pp. 831–856.
  52. Van Zyl-Hermann, D., and Boersema, J., 2017, 'Introduction: the politics of whiteness in Africa', Africa, Vol. 87, No. 4, pp. 651–661.
  53. Varro, G., 2008, 'Mettre la mixité à la place de l’origine', in Collet, B., and Philippe, C., eds, Mixités. Variations autour d’une notion transversale, Paris: L’Harmattan, pp. 201–218.
  54. White, S.B., 2005, ‘Releasing the Pursuit of ‘Bouncin and Behavin’ Hair: Natural Hair a an Afrocentric Feminist Aesthetic for Beauty’, International Journal of Media and Culture, Vol. 1, No. 3, pp. 295–308.
Read More

Biographie de l'auteur

Mansah Prah, University of Cape Coast, Ghana

 

 

Télécharger ce document PDF
PDF (ENGLISH)
Statistic
Read Counter : 1086 Download : 95

Téléchargements

Les données relatives au téléchargement ne sont pas encore disponibles.

Articles similaires

<< < 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 > >> 

Vous pouvez également Lancer une recherche avancée de similarité pour cet article.