ROOTED

Dima, Cake, Nour and Sarah are women who come from different parts of the Arab world — Iraq, Lebanon/Palestine, Morocco, and Syria — but all have in common one thing; curly hair.

For my project with Diversify Photo and Fujifilm as a DEVELOP 2023 fellow, I present ROOTED, a work in progress that explores hair identity by returning to our roots. The purpose is to celebrate and embrace the ongoing journey/process of loving and understanding natural hair.

On the surface, the way we wear our hair may seem like a superficial concern. For Arab women, it is deeply ingrained and rooted in our community, culture and identity. And though there is a Curly Hair Revolution happening all over the world, the stories and narratives rarely come from Arab women.

I spent an afternoon with each of them in their homes and recorded conversations as they prepared for the day, starting with styling their hair. Each of these Arab women have a unique story in regards to where they come from, how their upbringing defined their beauty standards, their relationship with their body hair growing up and how they see their hair now. Arab women are often forgotten in this narrative and I’m hoping to change that by starting here. 

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NOUR

“Historically, Arab and Middle Eastern women always have to take the extra step to show that we’re here. We’re told that having our curly hair be “big and out there” is the reason men catcall us. We hated our curls because it brought us attention we’d be unjustly blamed for early on. Because having curly hair was seen as “3ieb.” (Shameful)."

CAKE

“The problem is that Arab and Lebanese women are so affected by the West’s perception of beauty; the standard of beauty is what a Western woman looks like. Straight hair, white, blonde, blue eyed. Even Arab men attribute these things to what a 'hot woman' looks like.”

DIMA

"For myself, it’s very challenging. The way that my family perceived beauty was a very white and European version of beauty. Once I started wearing my hair curly, I was asked, ‘How and why are you doing that?’ It takes a lot of active liberation and active choice to embrace what you look like and what you look like.”

SARAH

"My journey with self image is solely related to my hair.  No one else at my school had curls. I didn’t feel like I fit in. I wish I could tell a younger me that I don’t need to change the way I look to be more accepted or to be part of something, that I would find my own self expression and community when the time was right."

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