Da transição à liberdade: uma análise arqueogenealógica sobre o cabelo crespo no Brasil

Abstract

The manipulation of curly hair is a process that constructs, shifts, and updates discourses since the colonial period in Brazil. Considering this premise and understanding discourse as a strategic space within which power and knowledge relations operate (Foucault, 1989), this research aims to analyze the power and knowledge relations currently influencing a discursive shift between the so-called "hair transition" and "hair freedom." To do so, our corpus primarily consists of statements produced by two of Brazil's largest hair cosmetics brands: Seda, due to its pioneering position in the country, and Salon Line, as a Brazilian brand emerging in a context of affirmative discourses. Throughout the exposition, we will trace a narrative encompassing the discursive discontinuities related to curly hair in Brazil's history, focusing specifically on a recent shift extending from hair transition towards hair freedom. In this scenario, we will observe that beyond the straight/curly dichotomy, curly hair operates as a form of resistance that embraces not only its considered "natural" texture but also various forms, textures, and colors. This prompts us to contemplate the new places of power and resistance continuously emerging and permeating this extensive discursive web. Theoretical and methodological terms, this research is grounded in Foucauldian Discourse Studies, as well as those related to the history of black beauty in Brazil (Braga, 2015), guiding us to the games of truth produced about curly hair in different historical moments. With this work, we will present, through the analysis of our corpus, the strategic game perennially played between power and resistance within discourses about curly hair, particularly concerning the current functioning of a discursive police appropriating places of resistance and making them operate as places of power, creating conditions for the emergence of new places of resistance.