Intergenerational identities among black and mixed-race women: understanding the role of hair in navigating racial politics

The central theme of this dissertation explores the issue of identity practices among mixed-race women and how hair can act as a lens to understand the strategies adopted. The mixed-race women in this study were part of one family spanning two generations and two countries, of which I am also a member. The members of this family were selected because of their wide variety of phenotypic presentations. Their family background originated from Guyana, a country greatly impacted by structuring forces such as colonialism, where colourism and mixedness was endemic. This dissertation employed a narrative approach through semi-structured, in-depth interviews followed by a thematic analysis to uncover when experiences of identity construction occurred and how the participants hair was involved in this process. Findings illustrate that variable experiences of identity are available to mixed-race participants according to the choices of hairstyles they adopt which are also shaped by wider structuring forces such as the legacy of colonialism and the capitalist market