Index of Paper Presentations for the Parallel Sessions - Academy of ...

When asked to state their reasons for using hair extensions, the women who admitted to using hairextensions for beauty enhancement generally felt that extensions afforded them more flattering hairstylesdue to the additional length and volume which made their hair ‗fuller‘. One respondent added that usingextensions made her feel more sophisticated, whilst other women spoke of the confidence they gainedfrom wearing hair extensions. Some respondents admitted to using hair extensions to cover recedinghairlines. This is similar to the results of a study conducted by Keita et al. (2005) amongst Malian womenwhich found that the prime reasons for visiting salons were frontal alopecia (i.e., receding hairlines), dryand brittle hair, and the desire to look beautiful.The remaining three natural hair styles (dreadlocked, plaited, uncombed) were amongst the leastpreferred together with the curly bouncy weave style (Table 4). This appears to be further affirmation ofthe unpopularity of natural hair in preference for hair extensions. The fact that the curly bouncy weavewas rated in the bottom four seems to contradict the respondents‘ view that they find long bouncy hairmore attractive (Table 6). This suggests that women may like a type of hairstyle, but may not wear such astyle due to reasons such as affordability and convenience.To conclude the discussion on the use of hair extensions as a symbol of self-hatred or de-Africanisation, the observed rankings of the hairstyles affirms the respondents‘ preference for hairextensions to natural hair. However, the results do not fully support the hypothesis that black Africanwomen suffer from self-hatred. Whilst 51.3% of the women strongly agreed and agreed that Caucasianinspiredhairstyles are more attractive than their own (i.e., ―Hair extensions make me look morebeautiful‖, Table 6); the two most popular hairstyles (i.e., braiding (long/singles) and braiding (cornrows),Table 4) selected by the same respondents are inherently variations of African styles, except that they arebraided with hair extensions (see Figure 1). Okafor (2007: 49), in his study of women in Nigeria, assertsthat ―...elaborately plaited and woven hair in different designs...‖ apart from being hard-wearing andshowing a woman‘s face to advantage, is also an intrinsically African traditional hairstyle. In this study,since the highest ranked styles are African-inspired, it is prudent to conclude that the results do notsupport the self-hatred proposition.Use of hair extensions as symbol of modernityThe second question sought assess whether the black African women‘s use of hair extensions was asymptom of their desire to conform to modernity. To address this question, the respondents were firstpresented with ten statements from the PVQ scale to rate on a 5-point scale as explained previously. Therespondents‘ value priorities on the value domains relating to openness to change and conservation wereassessed in order to ascertain the respondents‘ desire to embrace change and therefore modernity. Theresults revealed that the openness to change value domain (M=2.34) was given more emphasis than theconservation value domain (M=2.44) (Table 7) by the respondents. Thirteen percent of these respondentsascribed their use of extensions to the need for variety; fun and fashion while 26% ascribed their use ofextensions to beauty enhancement (Table 5).These findings may be linked to the respondents‘ desire for modernity. As Nyamnjoh (2002)argues, a result of globalization is that consumers now have an inexhaustible availability of options.Nyamnjoh (2002: 119) further argues that globalization has created an interdependent world and in theAfrican context, African women ―...have capitulated to the lure of the West as a sign of modernity‖, but atthe same time have ―…sought to domesticate modernity and locate Africa within the global space‖. Thisstatement appears true for the hairstyle trends in Africa, which as previously pointed out, incorporateextensions that are African-inspired in design, and are becoming increasingly fashionable and global.Although these styles now compete with the Caucasian-inspired styles, the African woman in creating herown form of modernity, has also incorporated traditional styles into her current hairstyles, blending themwith extensions in order to make them last longer or to enhance their appearance in terms of volume andlength.The prioritisation of openness to change as the second most important value domain is consistentwith the age group of the majority of the respondents. Schwartz et al. (2001) posit that as people grow