Decolonising beauty, with Afua Hirsch

Doing It Right with Pandora Sykes

Pandora Sykes

Society & Culture

4.6 • 835 Ratings

🗓️ 30 April 2024

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

I’m really interested in talking about the gnarly parts of the beauty industry - where things like tanning and hair removal actually come from. In the last series, Jessica DeFino debunked many myths about make-up and skincare. This season, I talk to journalist, author and broadcaster Afua Hirsch about beauty’s colonialist ideals and how she sought to break up with them. Afua talks about reconnecting with her ancestral heritage through beauty ritual, why rest is resistance, how tattooing can be a sacred act, why puberty should be celebrated, and how globalisation and the borderless world has left us yearning for community and ritual. As you’ll glean from our sprawling conversation, ‘beauty’ - and by that I don’t mean make-up, but the social, political and cultural ideals around women’s bodies - is the portal to the way we live. I found this conversation so galvanizing (I am now on the path to getting “spiritually ripped”) and I really hope you do too. Decolonising My Body: a radical exploration of rituals and beauty by Afua Hirsch Get in touch at [email protected] Presented by Pandora Sykes Sound by Kelsey Bennett Co-production by Pandora Sykes and Kelsey Bennett

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	You're listening to Doing It Right with me, Pandora Sykes, a podcast where I talk to experts about the myths, anxieties and trends of modern life.
0:15.4	In this series, series four, I'll be exploring topics including postpartum psychosis, sociopathy, and how technology
0:24.1	has flattened personal taste. This is a podcast that asks, what can we do to understand life
0:30.8	better? Not just for ourselves, but for everyone. For the first time ever, I'm dropping the whole
0:37.1	series in one as a capsule
0:38.7	box set, so tuck in. And don't forget to let me know your thoughts at doing it rightpod
0:44.1	at gmail.com. F.U. Hirsch is an award-winning journalist, broadcaster, author and former barrister.
0:55.9	She was the co-presenter of a 2020 TV series, Enslaved, with Samuel L Jackson,
1:01.5	and is the author of two books, The Sunday Times Best Selling Brit-ish, and Decolonising My Body,
1:07.2	a radical exploration of rituals and beauty.
1:10.7	I've been really interested in the conversation
1:13.1	around beauty and capitalism and colonialism for a while now. Regular listeners to this podcast may
1:19.1	remember that I interviewed Jessica Defino in the last series and that episode is a really nice
1:24.0	compliment to this one. This conversation with Effia was so surprising and thought-provoking.
1:31.0	Beauty, it turns out, is the portal for everything.
1:34.5	We talk about how Effieuer learned to reconnect with ancestral practices in Garnian culture,
1:40.0	like waist beads, why rest is resistance, the origins of hair removal, tattooing as a sacred
1:49.0	act, and how globalisation and the borderless world has left us yearning for community and rituals.
1:56.9	Effewa really gets to the heart of this podcast's quest, offering up so many ideas of how to best serve ourselves so that we can better serve others.
2:07.0	I hope you enjoy the episode.
2:10.9	Effieuer, thank you so much for coming on to doing it right.
2:13.9	Thank you for having me.
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in -288 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Pandora Sykes, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Pandora Sykes and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.