Our Hair: Creative Theological and Perverted Body
Picture: Leo Martins. Portal Geledés
by Nathália Montezuma; translated from Spanish by Yolanda M. Santiago Correa
Na bruma leve das paixões que vem de dentro
Tu vens chegando pra brincar no meu quintal.[1]
Through centuries, hair has been one of the primary means of expressing the ontology of afro-diasporic people. From a theological perspective, every time I manipulate my hair, my Afro-Latin American woman's hair (maybe other women feel the same), I am living out a syncretic faith that leads me to new ways of self-awareness, divine revelation, and liberation. I have the privilege of thinking with feeling and feeling with thinking about my hair. That opportunity allows me to connect to theological discourses such as Monica A. Coleman’s assertion that women often find God in their daily tasks. Such is the case of many African tribes who establish a dialogue with God through hair because the Orí - the head – is the body part closest to God.
Hair is a theological body that can, whether through Christian theological discourses or contemporary political movements, denounce practices of capillary aesthetic imposition. Adopting static capillary aesthetics can imply the imposition of monocultural theologies and political practices (of absolutist, monotheist, patriarchal, racist, and sexist character) on our Afro-Latin American bodies. We are diasporic African women, transcultural women, conscious that the result of an unequal coexistence of cultures has generated the genocide of multiple indigenous and African worldviews.
The different and creative capillary styles of many Afro-Latin American women (Afro-Caribbean, African American) have allowed us to redefine our existence in the Amerikkkan continent.[2] For Nilma Gomes, this creativity allows hair to produce diverse messages with different readings and interpretations. Our hair is a storyteller, a teller of herstories.[3] We must be vigilant of interpreting capillary messages through sensible and critical ways because we, the Afro-Latin American women, are a movement, voices in resistance, life that is re-born, ∞.
May the way we relate to our hair guide us to a genuine and conscious encounter with ourselves and with our divinities! May our hair challenge every stagnant system of gender and race! May our hair allow us to dismantle the myopic image that westernized society has of the Afro-Latin American woman! A theology of the Black capillary aesthetic will enable us to think with feeling and feel with thinking, interculturally, from the different hairstyles of Afro-Latin American women – afro, straight, curly, braided, buzzed, short, long … blonde. Our hair is the garden in which we play with God and show how creative and perverted we can be against a society that attempts to annihilate us. We have been called to live in liberty (see Galatians 5:13).
Let’s do it through our precious hairs!
Bibliography
Coleman, Monica A. (2002). “THE WORK OF YOUR OWN HANDS”: Doing Black Women’s Hair as Religious Language in Gloria Naylor’s “Mama Day.” Soundings: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 85(1/2), pp. 121–139. Available on: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41179030.
Gomes, Nilma Lino. (2019). Sem perder a raiz:corpo e cabelo como símbolos da identidade negra. Belo Horizonte: Autêntica, Kindle version.
Notes
[1]“In the light fog of passions that come from inside, you come to play in my patio,” portion of the song Anunciação by Alceu Valença. https://youtu.be/yz9XNWEH2oI, translation.
[2] This term was coined by African American activist Assata Shakur, to allude to the Ku Klux Glan, the putative son of the supremacist and racist United States.
[3] Alluding to our stories as women (her).
Nathália Montezuma, Afro-Brazilian woman, Nepantla theologian, woman of a border.
She has a Post-Graduate Certificate in Latin American and Caribbean Studies from the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLASCO) and holds a degree in Theology from the Universidade da Grande Dourados (UNIGRAN). She is completing a Master’s degree in Critical Studies in Gender and Theology at the Theological Community of Mexico (CTdeM). She is a member of the North American Chapter of the European Society of Women in Theological Research (NA ESWTR). She also is a member of the AfroLatiné Theology Project (ALTP), the editorial committee of Tras las huellas de Sophía, and Colectivo África Bíblica Decolonial. Her afro-experience navigates between Brazilian-Mexican-American cultures, which allows her theological task to be intercultural, critical, and loving.
