Hair practice as social space
#Braiding as socio-spatial practice
Johannesburg CBD, South Africa.
Braids in Jozi
Many women come to the city to braid their hair and due to a lack of financial access to rental economic space, braiding happens in the street. This braiding creates a service in the street, with the simple addition of plastic chairs and signs on the pavement. Braiding often takes time leaving customers with not much to do but to watch their surrounds. This subconsciously creates a people-watching environment-watching-learning experience, providing customers (mostly Black women) with layered social cartographic knowledge through witnessing negotiations often overlooked by formal mapping mechanisms.
Image by: David Goldblatt. Courtesy Goodman Gallery Johannesburg.
Many women come to the city to braid their hair and due to a lack of financial access to rental economic space, braiding happens in the street. This braiding creates a service in the street, with the simple addition of plastic chairs and signs on the pavement. Braiding often takes time leaving customers with not much to do but to watch their surrounds. This subconsciously creates a people-watching environment-watching-learning experience, providing customers (mostly Black women) with layered social cartographic knowledge through witnessing negotiations often overlooked by formal mapping mechanisms.
Image by: David Goldblatt. Courtesy Goodman Gallery Johannesburg.
Braiding as empowerment
The advancement of social media has given unprecedented access to a completely organic flow of artistic creativity in the hair braiding industry…The motivation feed of @hairbyangeled represents everything food about Chicago braiding culture…The @Crowezilla feed features show stopping artistic braid creations tempered by a pleasantly familiar South Side authenticity’ (Queen’s Corner Blog) for example. Braiding has emerged from its home based out-of-need intervention, into many Black women starting and running empowering businesses about hair.
Image by: (film still) Rodney Lucas