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Braiding Labor: Black Female Hairstylists and “Informal” Economies in Qatar
Abstract
The politics of Black hair are a prominent topic in Anglo-American Black feminism scholarship (Banks, 2000; Crenshaw, 2014; Harris-Perry, 2011). Yet, little is known on the mobilization of hair -braiding skills in ‘Global South’ locales. In Qatar, post-world cup scrutiny of labor laws has rarely focused on the intersection of Blackness and gender, particularly as it pertains to informal labor that does not involve supranational and government agencies. Black female migrant workers in Qatar are paid the lowest wages and if they are employed in a domestic setting, are more likely to be given more physically taxing work (Fernandez, 2023). Through interviews, participant observation, and textual analysis of Qatar labor laws, I read the “informal” labor performed by Black hairstylists in Qatar as a terrain of resistance to economic and legal precarity imposed by labor laws and patriarchal kin relations. Using trans feminist theories (Bey, 2022), I suggest that Black female migrants in Qatar use their hair -braiding skills to also “bargain with the patriarchy” (Kandiyoti, 1988), through their ‘business’ practice such as braiding while performing reproductive labor, including childcare, and household chore. These practices and performances problematize the masculinist liberal bifurcation of public/private spheres, opening up space to capaciously think of the labor performed by Black female migrant. Further, I contend that, in response to the legal precarity, hairstylists engage in ‘reactive transnationalism’ (Snel et al., 2016), purchasing property and land, constructing houses, and sending remittances to family members in their home countries. Black female migrant labor practices render visible the racialized and gendered hierarchies in Qatar, further probing Anglo-American rigid identity discourses of Blackness and gender.
Discipline
Anthropology
Geographic Area
Africa (Sub-Saharan)
Gulf
Qatar
Sub Area
None