Afro Caribbean Hairdressers and Barbers

I was somewhat bamboozled the other day when a black consultant psychiatrist kept referring to hairdressers as suppliers of social capital. I had not come across the term "social capital" before but I took it to mean the support you get from friends, family and colleagues. It is a bit of a mercantile piece of jargon but I suppose the suits need some way of referring to mates without lapsing into the vernacular. One cannot be too colloquial in a formal situation. Jargon aside I could not understand the repeated references to hairdressers until I talked afterwards to a Jamaican friend of mine.

She explained that when people first came over from the Caribbean there were no hairdressers or barbershops for black people so the immigrants learned pretty fast that they had to cater for their own hair care. There was one lady who was a musician by profession. She wrote the theme tune for one of the snooker programmes and is one of the most successful women composers. No, I don't know her name. Anyhow this artiste needed a hairdresser so she set one up in Brixton. These hairdressers and barbers came to act as hubs for the the black community. You could leave messages for people. You could collect messages. Once you got off the boat in Liverpool you would go to the hairdresser to leave a message for your family and friends.

Many is the time I have passed the barber in Coldharbour Lane, Brixton and marveled at the sculptural skills of the staff. These guys would shave ornate designs into the scalps of boys and young men. They looked so cool. I knew guys liked to hang out there but I never imagined the wider social significance of barbers and hairdressers.