Sunday, July 10, 2022

Re: Falolana :Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - On the Philosophical Significance of Hair and its Artistic Shaping: Theoretical Indications in the Chapter on Philosophies of Hair and Hairstyles in Relation to Yoruba Thought in Toyin Falola's Decolonizing African Knowledge: Autoethnography and African Epistemologies Close Reading 1

Toyin you have  made valid points  .I must purchase a copy of the Book and then I would reply you perhaps  in detail.
I must thank you for suggesting  that I return to this forum.it turns out to be a brilliant  suggestion..thanks once again.


On Sunday, July 10, 2022, Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovdepoju@gmail.com> wrote:
thanks, Augustine. well said on the britannica. was fundamental for me as an awakening teenager. 

we need a publishing model, perhaps complementary to the current high end one, that will make these books more readily affordable.

this particular one is very rich in pictures of african arts and yoruba dress, sculpture and hair styles, thereby multiplying its communicative power.

part of the power of the language of the book, particularly in the section on yoruba arts the chapter on hair comes from, and certainly so in that chapter,  is its combination of  sophistication of diction, sentence construction and ideational range, marking a departure from the other recent falola book , decolonising african studies, in which the marriage of simplicity and force is the norm, as in falola's poetry.

In collaboration with the author and the publishers, its possible to do a simpler version of this book for better  access for young readers and non-academic audiences. 

the issue of audience penetration is critical for such a book as this one on account of its broad value, exemplified particularly by the section on yoruba culture and particularly by the chapter on hair.

its possible to develop a curriculum of study in the theory and practice of hair weaving and hair styling in particular inspired by that chapter. seems the UK already has a curriculum of practice along such lines but ive not seen an ideational range of a similar scope as evident in this book in the UK curriculum ive seen.

it seems the philosophies of the human body in the West might not be as developed as in Africa and Asia, perhaps on account of Christianity's downplaying of the body and the material world, while classical African and some Asian spiritualities may be seen as perceiving the body, mind and spirit as closely interrelated, a perception falola skillfully builds upon in terms of yoruba thought, an insight perhaps only recently gaining momentum in the distinctive contexts of the West.

the book scours the field of yoruba aesthetics, in general, and in relation to particular arts, complemented by relevant broader scholarship, bringing these resources  powerfully to bear in the chapters on those arts. 

a hair stylist could adapt some of falola's summations on theory and practice of yoruba women's hair styling, suitably simplified for easier understanding by average readers-with credit to the original writer. this could be placed on a poster which they place on their shop wall for inspiration of staff and customers.

if i'm sufficiently motivated, i could approach the author and the publishers to produce such posters for sale after seeing if hair artists would be interested.

thanks

toyin

On Sun, 10 Jul 2022 at 14:17, 'Augustine Togonu-Bickersteth' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> wrote:
Toyin thanks for this.its the third time  i Am encountering  your name in relation to this monumental book by  Toyin Falola . First in the punch newspaper  mention by Ayo Olukotun then in the nigerian tribune an incisive article .then on this forum..
.I hope  I would be rich enough and courageous  enough to get a copy. Our parents bought us encyclopaedia Americana  and britainica we have to stock our libraries, family library  with yorubana, africana,soyinkana and if I am allowed  Falolana.


On Sunday, July 10, 2022, Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovdepoju@gmail.com> wrote:
                          
                                                                                      
                                                                     

                                    On  the Philosophical Significance of Hair and its Artistic Shaping

Theoretical Indications in the Chapter on  Philosophies of Hair and Hairstyles in Relation to Yoruba Thought 

                                                                                    in 

            Toyin Falola's Decolonizing African Knowledge:Autoethnography and African Epistemologies

                                                                          Close Reading 1

                                                                                   
                                                                                             
                                       

                                              Picture of Onile Gogoro by J. D. 'Okhai Ojeikere


"Hairstyles that ascend and aspire in Nigeria," is how Whitney Richardson describes the hair art pictured by photographer J. D. 'Okhai Ojeikere, with particular reference to a style which, ''Spiraling close to two feet in the air, the style — Onile Gogoro in Yoruba — was sported by women across Lagos, like a crown that symbolized the aspirations of a new and striving nation'' [ shown above] [ emerging] When the country celebrated its independence from Britain in 1960 [ at which point the]  hairstyle called the tall house literally sprang up'' ( ''Hairstyles That Ascend, and Aspire, in Nigeria'', Jan.15, 2015, The New York Times)

 

                                                            Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
                                                                          Compcros                                       

                                                     Comparative Cognitive Processes and Systems   

                                      "Exploring Every Corner of the Cosmos in Search of Knowledge"


                                                                                Abstract

The first segment of a paragraph by paragraph study of the chapter ''Yorùbá Hair Art and the Agency of Women'' in Toyin Falola's  Decolonizing African Knowledge: Autoethnography and African Epistemologies ( Cambridge, 2022). This opening addresses the title of the chapter and the title of the introduction that begins the chapter. The main essay is complemented by images of arts of hair weaving by J. D. 'Okhai Ojeikere and Toyin Falola, with accompanying text.

This essay follows on from my review of the book, "A Scholar Takes Stock of his Paradoxical Identity at a Nexus of Cultures: Toyin Falola's Decolonizing African Knowledge : Autoethnography and African Epistemologies : Anticipatory Review."


Contents

Image and Text: Picture of Onile Gogoro by J. D. 'Okhai Ojeikere

Purpose and Rationale

Image and Text: Picture of Onílégogoro by Toyin Falola

Chapter Title

Image and Text: Pictures of Hair Making Process and Outcomes by Toyin Falola

Title of Introduction


Purpose and Rationale

This is the first part of a projected paragraph by paragraph study of the chapter on philosophies of hair and female hairstyles in relation to Yoruba thought in Toyin Falola's Decolonizing African Knowledge.

Falola elaborates in that chapter  on  foundational Yoruba theories of the human body, with a focus on the feminine and the artistic construction of female hair, an elaboration grounded in a consideration of the significance of hair as a universal category.  

Falola therefore develops implications of the traditional conceptions, extending the creative scope of the cognitive tradition in which he is working.  This focus on Yoruba thought, however, in its foundational reality and extrapolative possibilities, lends itself to exploration in terms of its universal resonance, its applicability to understanding human realities across cultures, at the intersection of the universal sameness of biology and of conjunctions between cultural diversities.

A close study of this chapter assists in the assimilation, critique, further development and application of its ideas and styles of expression, as it marshalls a broad range of Yoruba aesthetic thought, in its epistemic and metaphysical unities with ideas of beauty,  physical, psychological, behavioural and spiritual. 

The chapter demonstrates these integrations in highlighting the significance of an art ubiquitous  in Yorubaland and in Nigeria, ideas incidentally implicating the  global pervasiveness of hair styling, from the female hair weaving  Falola's chapter focuses on, to male hair styling and weaving as evident in other parts of the world.

The chapter achieves this illumination  in a manner building on what has been developed so far in Yoruba philosophy, in general,  and Yoruba aesthetics, in particular,  as represented, for example, by Babatunde Lawal's iconic   ''Orinolise:The Hermeneutics  of the Head and Hairstyles Among the Yoruba.'' (World of Tribal Arts, 7 (2) 2001-2002, 80-99).

                                                                              
                                                       


                                                       Picture of  Onílégogoro   by Toyin Falola


''…the  Onílégogoro hairstyle, or the modern variant seen directly above,  through its  tall, ornately styled, and long weaves, evokes the  the human desire to reach for greater heights,  as suggested by such architectural expressions as duplexes, skyscrapers and other  tall structures,'' as described by Toyin Falola in Decolonizing African Knowledge  ( 375),  a quotation slightly modified in structure and slightly expanded with about a few  words by myself, for clarity. The word additions are  ''skyscrapers''  and grammatical connectives such as ''and'' and ''suggested.'' Apologies to the writer.

Original sentence:

''…the  Onílégogoro hairstyle, or the modern variant seen in Figure 12.1, emulating the human desire to reach for greater heights – and the Yorùbá architectural expression of this ambition, such as duplexes and tall structures – through tall, ornately styled, and long weaves.''


 Photograph by Toyin Falola in Decolonizing African Knowledge (375)


Chapter Title

''Yorùbá Hair Art and the Agency of Women'' is the title of the chapter. What kind of agency, what kind of creative power, of capacity for responsibility and action,  could this be?

This would involve the contemporary scope of understanding of female identities and the social roles of women as generally perceived in Yoruba society. This could include economics, spirituality, sexuality, among other possibilities. Sexuality would involve implications of female biology, marriage, spinsterhood, motherhood. The chapter would be expected to demonstrate  how the arts of hair relate to the various categories of biological and social existence as these involve pervasive perceptions of women in Yoruba culture.

In a number of studies of conceptions of the feminine in Yoruba thought, sexuality, spirituality and economics are described as interrelated. This interrelationship is projected in terms of symbols,  represented, for example, by the calabash, evoking the womb or the cosmos, or a matrix of creative possibilities expressed in terms of economic values and prosperity, ideas  open to synthesis as unifying all these possibilities in a comprehensive mapping of human and cosmic capacity.

These possibilities are subsumed in a number of female deity figures, such as the potter Iya Mopo, evoking creative and procreative possibilities represented by pottery as both a female centred art and an art evoking female biological procreativity. 

Another is Odu, matrix  from which all possibilities arise, represented by  the Calabash of Odu, a matrix of the Ifa system of knowledge and divination, perception of which is vital for entry into its arcana. The symbolism of this  calabash  is  correlative with the common circular design  of the opon ifa divination tray of Ifa upon which the spatial configurations manifesting the possibilities represented by odu symbols are actualised in Ifa divination, a divination procedure that is an effort at perceiving the intersection of various realities, spiritual and physical, in shaping the current state and possible outcomes of human experience.

                                                                               
                     


                              Pictures of Hair Making Process and Outcomes by Toyin Falola


"The process of hair making reflects its artistry. The Onídìrí [ the hair artist as named in Yoruba culture] uses techniques that have been equated with sculpting: Lílà, separating the hair (Figures 12.16 and 12.17) into blocks of strands, or relatively equal clusters, to reveal mass and volume (see Figure 12.17) with the Ìlarun [ "a special type of hair-making instrument shaped like a trident that is used to part hair '' 394]; Onà-lílà, further accentuating the paths of division into recognizable forms and maintaining the idea of form (Figure 12.18); and Dídi irun, which is the actual plaiting.


Depending on the subject's choice, the plait could be braided, woven without attachment, or woven with a type of black elastic thread (see Figure 12.19) or ribbon (see Figure 12.20).


                                                                    

                                                                 



There is also the aesthetic of Dídán, which involves using materials such as Àdí-àgbon, butter, oil, lime, Osùn, clay, synthetics, human hair, or even "extensions of human hair from spouses or relatives and vegetable fibres" to heighten the finished hair's luminosity and brilliance, attracting people with its appeal and artistry.


Hair [weaving]  self-reveals its own artistry and artistic processes like any artwork, showing the map to its essence through defined, oiled, and accentuated patterns and through the act of Ìwòran [ visual perception].''


Text and pictures by Toyin Falola, Decolonizing African Knowledge, 395-398. Collage by Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju.

 



Title of Introduction

''Hair as Art and Symbol'' is the title of the introduction to the chapter. What would ''art'' imply in this context? What could the term ''symbol'' represent? 

''Art'' is  perhaps a controversial term, particularly in terms of debates about art as something created without reference to its utility, an idea dominant in a particular school of Western aesthetics, and art as something that may or may not demonstrate utility but goes beyond the purely utilitarian, a value in which utilitarian and more abstract values may work together.

That unified approach is more in keeping with creativity in classical African cultures, of which hair weaving as discussed in the Falola chapter is one, a classical art active in contemporary times and dynamic within its post-classical contexts, dramatising a trans-utilitarian  approach to creativity also evident in other culture specific forms across the world, including the West.

Symbolism refers to values something has which go beyond its immediate meaning. In this instance, this would imply hair, not only as something shaped in a beautiful way, something demonstrating human capacity to construct patterns not given by nature but made by human ingenuity even when similar patterns may exist in nature, inspiring human creativity,  but an art that reverberates beyond its immediate meaning, echoing in terms of realms of value beyond its immediate significance, suggesting ideas and possibilities outside its own proximate references.




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