“Cabelo meu! Se você não fosse meu, eu não seria tão eu": identidade racial a partir da valorização do cabelo afro em salões étnicos

Abstract

Five black entrepreneurs own ventures aimed at a very specific audience that has denied its aesthetic and traits phenotypes for many years. These spaces, named ethical salons, are intended to treat black men and women‟s frizzled and/or curly hair. In this context, we ask: how do black entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs face a coloniality logic in social relations, through the creation of businesses that take into account black valorization and racial identity? This research sought to understand how entrepreneurs and black entrepreneurs resist the logic of subalternity and contribute to the construction of racial identity from their business in the specialized beauty salon sector. Narratives were gathered from field research, through interviews that, after synthesis and analysis, allowed for the delineation of seven analysis categories. The applied data analysis was the Narrative Analysis, in which the narrative is understood as a way of transferring narrator experiences to the listeners. What was perceived is that there are circular relations regarding the question of resistance to coloniality, which are repeated and need to be constantly faced. Having an eminently Afro business does not protect its owners and customers from biased and racist practices and actions. However, in the quest for survival, blacks have always found ways to resist, ever since slavery. In the context of this study, the most intense form of resistance is consolidated by the creation of an enterprise that, when assuming itself as ethnic or, in other words, directed towards a socially excluded group, already plays a crucial role within the black community.