“Hair we go again!” Negotiating space and diasporan identity.Vera Williams Tetteh

In this paper, which covers an aspect of my PhD research, I draw mainly on data from field-notes and participant observations conducted in an African hairdressing salon in Sydney in 2008 to look at identity constructions in the discourse practices related to African women’s hairdressing. I take a critical discourse analytical approach to explore hairdressing as discourse practices indicative of diasporan subjectivities produced in resistance and/or conformity to mainstream expectations. The paper discusses how African hairdressers and consumers of African hair-styles carve spaces for multilingualism and for local and transnational identities. The paper argues that such ‘minor’ discourse practices: (a) create inclusive spaces in a linguistically and culturally diverse society; (b) provide insights into power relationships that mediate diasporan identities; and (c) illuminate the interplay between language ideologies and language use in migrant settlement.

Vera Williams Tetteh is a PhD candidate in the Linguistics Department at Macquarie University under the supervision of Prof Ingrid Piller and Dr Kimie Takahashi. Her thesis is a sociolinguistic ethnographic study of the language learning and settlement trajectories of black African immigrant men and women living in Sydney and Wagga Wagga. She’s is also a researcher on the AMEP Longitudinal Study and a member of the Language on the Move team.