Event overview
Portrait of a Black Barber: an ethnography of masculinity, race and identity in a Brixton barbershop
Talk by Dr Karis Campion (Stephen Lawrence Research Centre, De Montford University).
The functions of black barbershops within black communities are infinite. They are sites for cross-generational contact, entrepreneurship, ritual grooming practices, counsel, (uncensored) debate, cultural continuity, respite and leisure. In this paper I enter the shop floor of a Brixton barbershop through the life portrait of one black barber, Jeremiah, a self-professed alpha-male in his late 40s. Utilising observations and interview data from an ethnographic study of South London barbershops, the paper demonstrates how these protected racialised spaces are unique institutions where black identities and experiences are worked through in everyday talk that takes place outside of the external oppressive gaze.
Firstly, I consider how Jeremiah’s life experiences of police racism, poor schooling, criminality and eventual prison time, have collectively been a catalyst for his route into barbering. The multiple forms of discrimination and exclusion he experienced as a young black man ultimately limited his access to the labour market and with no regulation and low start-up costs, barbering has been a constant in his life and one way to earn an honest living. In part two, I shift my focus to Jeremiah’s facilitation of particular conversations and debates between himself and clients (me included) on the shop floor to show how the barbershop can become an instrumental space for theorising about the meaning of blackness in Britain in general, and (inadvertently) his own life experiences as a black man in Brixton.
I spotlight conversations from the shop floor that relate to the following two themes:
(1) Black peoples’ relations to power and inequality
(2) Black masculinity, sexuality and race.
I see these themes as key to explaining Jeremiah’s experience of identity and inequality in Britain through a structural lens.
Dr Karis Campion is a Legacy in Action Research Fellow at the Stephen Lawrence Research Centre, De Montfort University. She is the author of 'Making Mixed Race: A Study of Time, Place and Identity' (Routledge, 2021). Recent work has focused on the relationship between place and race (in particular black place-making, community and identity), Black mixed-race identities and families, and anti-racism in higher education. Her current ethnographic research project is examining how barbershops function as counter-hegemonic spaces and key social institutions for black communities in South London.
Dates & times
| Date | Time | Add to calendar |
|---|---|---|
| 9 Dec 2022 | 12:30pm - 2:00pm |
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