Decolonising My Body, Afua Hirsch
Decolonising My Body, Afua Hirsch
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Decolonising My Body
A radical exploration of rituals and beauty

Author: Afua Hirsch

Narrator: Afua Hirsch

Unabridged: 5 hr 51 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 10/19/2023

Synopsis

Brought to you by Penguin.

How do we determine what is beautiful? Whose standards are we trying to meet when we spend our hard-earned money on our haircare, skincare and makeup; where do they come from, and how can we learn to undo them?

Upon getting her first tattoo at 40 years old, award-winning journalist Afua Hirsch embarked on a journey to reclaim her body from the colonial ideas of purity, adornment and ageing she - and many of us - absorbed while growing up. Informed by research from around the world, Afua will look at how individual and collective notions of what is beautiful are constructed or stripped away from us. Through personal anecdotes, interviews from beauty experts, practitioners and service users, she explores the global history of skin, hair and body modification rituals. These insights and discoveries will empower readers to reconnect with their cultures of origin, better understand the link between beauty and politics, and liberate themselves from mainstream beauty standards that aren't serving them.

©2023 Afua Hirsch (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Reviews

Goodreads review by Esme on January 07, 2025

Obviously a GLOWING five stars - I literally feel so deeply connected to Afua, I love her writing, I love her musings, her politics, her spiritual journey and above all her book reccies!!!!! This was a joy and a pleasure and I’ll be keeping it on my coffee table awaiting the next read.......more

Goodreads review by Sophie on September 13, 2024

Finally finished decolonising my body!! This book is filled with such beautiful and intimate stories and wisdom on rituals and beauty related to womanhood. Reading it felt like talking to a friend who has taken the time to reveal their inner self to you. Afua has such incredible and vast knowledge o......more

Goodreads review by Molly on September 10, 2024

Beautiful person, beautiful writing! Could read books by Afua over and over!......more

Goodreads review by Andrew on February 18, 2024

This book wasn't quite what I expected it to be, and I found it to be a little muddled and meandering, and lacking focus. It felt like a number of different magazine articles or essays loosely linked rather than a more coherent exposition of both the personal journey that Hirsch has made to reclaim......more

Goodreads review by Malcolm on October 26, 2024

For all of its imposition, demands, regulatory practices, and controls, one of the things colonialism does most effectively and often most subtly is shape, control, and determine legitimate uses and styles of our bodies. It seems to me that controlling embodiment is perhaps its most powerful tool, i......more

Quotes

Exceptionally rich, inspiring, challenging, wise and moving. I didn't realise I needed this book until I read it and felt stirrings towards my own ancestral awakening of African female cultural beliefs and practices that were sadly long ago lost to the colonial project. This is a ground-breaking book that speaks to all women. Bernardine Evaristo, author of 'Girl, Woman, Other'

We’re talking a lot about identity and race and politics, but also about the impact of colonialism on body image, and it’s just something that I had never considered before. I felt like I was learning a lot in reading her book … Celebrates women how they are, as they are. Gillian Anderson

I would wholeheartedly recommend Decolonising My Body by Afua Hirsch. It is a very brave and honest exploration, almost and excavation of Eurocentric standards of beauty and perceptions of body, particularly of the female body. It is also a calm and wise call of an awakening, a friendly – or sisterly – invitation to a transformative journey beyond these mental walls that have been erected around and between us by capitalism and patriarchy and colonialism. I found it both universal and timely The New Statesman Books of the Year 2023

There's something on every page of this book that you didn't know before, or makes you look at things a new. An important publication. Sathnam Sanghera, author of 'Stolen History' and 'Empireland'

Disarmingly honest... quietly radical Evening Standard

A remarkable journey to unlearn western beauty standards and explore ancestral skin, hair and body modification rituals. Observer

Decolonising my Body is both a generous offering, and a joy filled testimony. Afua skilfully pulls us into her world, and generously allows us to accompany her on a journey of questioning and unpacking notions of beauty. This exploration lights a path for all people who seek to (re)connect with more expansive understandings of beauty. Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah, author of 'The Sex Lives of African Women'

Afua has cut through so much of the noise to provide an enlightening and necessary reflection on how we can learn from the wisdom and beauty of our ancestors to become spiritually healthier humans. This book is a knowledge gift to us all. Naomi Evans, author of 'The Mixed Race Experience', co-Founder of Everyday Racism

The journalist, commentator and author of Brit(ish) reflects on twelve months radical unlearning of Eurocentric and patriarchal conventions of beauty in this powerful and challenging volume. Waterstones, 'Best Books of 2023: Politics'

Afua Hirsch’s Decolonising My Body is a breath of fresh air and is a travel book, a beauty book, and a history book all in one. It made me think about capitalism and race and the body in a new way New Statesman

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