Mazuba Haanyama

Untangling the Knots: Understanding the Hair Politics of Black Femininity in Post-apartheid South Africa Mazuba Haanyama

Untangling the Knots. This work is a product of my Masters Thesis Research. I was involved in a South African Netherlands Program for Alternatives in Development (SANPAD) research project. This project aimed to critically engage the role of popular culture in influencing youth cultures. Within this framework, I chose to do research on constructions of beauty as they are articulated through the politics of hair. I wanted to use the politics of hair as a lens into reading bodily performances, which negotiate political constructions of class, race and gender. By using hair and the constructions of beauty, as a lens, I intended on critically addressing contemporary cultural constructions of femininity as embedded in discourses of popular culture. I focused on young black middle class women located in a post-Apartheid context. I argue that their post- Apartheid locations position these women in critical relationship to the dynamic meanings of class and race in which I am interested, providing nuanced ways of deconstructing understandings of gendered subjectivities.