Brotherhood & Barbershops: A Harmonizing Decolonization of Arts-Based Ethnography Exploring/(Re)imagining Race, Masculinities, Intimacies, & Care through Barbering-Arts Praxis

This dissertation explores the barbershop and barbering as a critical site/ practice where Black masculinities, care, and intimacies are negotiated and reimagined through Arts-Based Auto/Ethnography (ABE). Rooted in my personal experiences as a barber, artist, and researcher, I investigate how Black masculine individuals express vulnerability and form platonic intimacies within this cultural space/practice. Using Special Effects Barbershop in Decatur, Georgia, as a primary field site, I document and analyze haircutting interviews, art-making practices, and personal case studies to reveal the barbershop’s function as a site and barbering as a practice for informal mental health care and community-building. This study engages deeply with barbering, arts-based research, and visual auto/ethnographic methods to understand how Black masculine peoples navigate their complex identities through everyday interactions in the barbershop, forming bonds that transcend the transactional nature of a haircut. A key aspect of this project is the connection between barbering, care, and art, which is visualized in this study as barbering-art praxis. I explore how barbering itself acts as a form of therapeutic care, creating a space where touch, conversation, and trust are interwoven. Simultaneously, through my art practice, I extend these experiences into creative expressions, highlighting the erotic and emotional dimensions of the barber/client relationship that were then featured in an art exhibition with a pop-up barbershop collaboration with local Lubbock, Texas barbers. In this study, the barbershop/barbering emerges as a multifaceted cultural space/method where Black masculine peoples can reclaim their narratives on racial experiences, challenge traditional masculinities, and experience care in a holistic, embodied way. By merging barbering with artistic and scholarly praxis, this dissertation proposes alternative methods of care that can aid Black masc people’s mental health while fostering deeper understandings of Black masculine identities.