Fading, Twisting, and Weaving: An Interpretive Ethnography of the Black Barbershop/Salon as Cultural Space
Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Date
1-1-2015
Abstract
Barbershops in the Black community are discursive spaces in which the confluence of Black hair care, for and by Black people, and small talk establish a context for cultural exchange. This interpretive ethnography describes the barbershop in a Black community as a cultural site for ethnographic exploration and description. The article defines a cultural site not only as the chosen geo-social locale of the ethnographic gaze but also as a centralized occasion within a cultural community that serves at the confluence of banal ritualized activity and the exchange of cultural currency. It is the social experience of being in the barbershop that the article focuses on, knowing that social experience meets at the intersection of culture and performance, and at the confluence of reflection and remembrance.
Original Publication Citation
Alexander, B.K. (2015). (Republication). Fading, Twisting, and Weaving: An Interpretive Ethnography of the Black Barbershop/Salon as Cultural Space. In C. Butler (Ed.), Scorched Earth, Mark Bradford, The Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (pp.127-141). [Publication history: Alexander, B. K. (2003). Qualitative Inquiry, 9.1, 101-128; extended version published in Alexander, B.K. (2006). Performing Black Masculinity: Race, Culture, and Queer Identity, Alta Mira Press: 135-159.]
Digital Commons @ LMU & LLS Citation
Alexander, Bryant Keith, "Fading, Twisting, and Weaving: An Interpretive Ethnography of the Black Barbershop/Salon as Cultural Space" (2015). Communication Studies Faculty Works. 99.
https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/comm_fac/99
