IAR 2: Regina E Spellers

Regina E. Spellers, “The Kink Factor: A Womanist Discourse Analysis of African American Mother/Daughter Perspectives on Negotiating Black Hair/Body Politics”

What is invention? (What activities did the writer have to engage in to create the text?)
• Find 10 heterosexual African American participants that range in age from 8-59who are from a variety of socioeconomic statuses, from different educational backgrounds, come from different kinds of households (single parent to “traditional” nuclear structures), and all share the mutuality of having to negotiate hair/body politics
• Conduct a preliminary study of in-depth one hour interview
• Find a way to have an efficient and effective interview in which the interviewees guide most of the conversation
• Make a list of “open-ended” guide questions for the interview
• Audiotape, transcribe, and analyze results from interviews
• Relate work to that done by other scholars (Banks, Smitherman, Collins ect…)
What is being invented? (What ideas, practices, arguments, etc. are created by the text?)
• Hair plays a significant role in the lives of many African American women
• Kinky means something completely different in Black culture than it does in White culture
• African American Women from all classes, ages, family structures, and geographic locations have experienced the “Kink Factor”
• Kink Factor= tensions associated with wanting to be self-defined, yet also wanting to avoid the consequences associated with self definition
• Self definition requires courage
• The idea that African American boys/men may experience similar traumas
What is being arranged? (What is being put in relation to what?)
• Kinky hair is a black thing + Kinky hair is nappy by nature + Kinky hair is a state of mine/mind = Kink Factor
• Experiences/feelings/ideas of women in the study are relative universal among all African American women
What is arrangement? (How are things being put in relation to one another?)
• General examples of scholarly work to specific past experiences of the participants in the study
• Analysis of stories from participants
• Break down each of the three parts of the Kink Factor
What is being revised? (What is the writer trying to change (e.g. what ideas, practices, etc.))?
• The idea that black hair/body decisions and politics do not affect many women
• Eliminate the stereotype (assume all users are white)
What is revision? (What strategies are engaged specifically to help the writer achieve the revisions?)
• Quote other linguist/ scholars
• Block quite significant comments during the interview
• Use examples from women of different age, class, family structure, geographic location, educational achievement, ect…
• Develop a metaphor (the “Kink Factor”) to emphasize “culturally symbolic meaning to tensions experienced by African American women when constructing their aesthetic images”
• Provide ideas for future research