Hair, 'Race' and Taking up Space: An exploration of the significance of hair in the identities of Black students within 'elite' universities

Despite the increasing number of Black students at Cambridge University, it remains an institution structured by normative whiteness where Black students must adapt their performances of racial identity in order to 'fit in'. During my MPhil, I propose to investigate Black students' experiences of navigating other 'elite' universities, analysing the object of hair to understand how people and spaces come to be racialized.
Studying these racialised performances in the context of 'elite' universities is crucial, due to the type of bodies which have historically moved comfortably within these spaces. The normative body, in this context, has been white, cisgender, upper class and male, colonially constructed to embody progress, intellect and rationality. It is therefore crucial to understand the experiences of Black students in 'elite' universities
because, as highlighted by the work of Ray (2019), an organisation remains a white space so long as people of colour are racialised as 'other' within it.
My core research questions thus ask:
1. What is the significance of hair in the identity construction of Black students in 'elite' universities?
2. What can engaging with hair tell us about how Black social actors navigate 'white' spaces?

Rather than interpreting the rising numbers of Black students as a sign of unfaltering progress, my MPhil research shall vitally highlight the paradoxical embodiment of inclusion and exclusion. This research has wider sociological significance because of its potential to urge anti-racist scholars and activists to expand what we see as possible for the liberation of marginalised groups. We cannot accept quantitative representation as a sign that racism has been solved.
Furthermore, my research aims to complicate and push forward Black feminist scholarship on racialisation
and white spaces. I will take an analytical approach which builds on Collins' (1986) concept of the 'outsider-within', exploring how for Black students, full 'insider' membership of 'elite' universities is rarely reached
due to their continual racialisation as 'other'.
By interviewing participants who embody a variety of gender identities, my work will expand Black feminist
engagement with gendered experiences of Blackness. I will therefore explore how gender and racial identity
intersect at the site of hair, and how these complex intersections produce varied experiences of marginality, in
the context of white spaces that claim to be succeeding at 'diversity'.