From the Kitchen to the Parlor

Book excerpt: Examines how hair and hair care take on situated social meanings among African American women in varied linguistic interactions--whether with one another, with African American men, or with European American women. Based on years of fieldwork in a range of sites, from cosmetology schools in South Carolina to hair care seminars in Beverly Hills, from stand up comedy clubs in Los Angeles to online debates about black hair, Jacob-Huey's multifaceted approach documents how and why hair comes to matter so much in African American women's construction of their identities, and how language both mediates and produces these social meanings. --From publisher description.