An Ethnographic Study of the Work of Beauty Amongst British Pakistani Women in Sheffield
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Becoming Beautifully Modern: An Ethnographic Study of the Work of Beauty Amongst British Pakistani women in Sheffield A thesis submitted to the University of Manchester for the degree of PhD in Social Anthropology in the Faculty of Humanities 2016 Hester Frances Clarke School of Social Sciences Table of Contents Table of Figures 4! Abstract 5! Declaration 6! Copyright Statement 6! Acknowledgements 7! Introduction 8! Pious Consumption and ‘New’ Asian businesses in Sheffield 8! The Pakistani Community in Sheffield 11! Revivalist Islam in Sheffield: Rejecting Race or Performing Whiteness? 16! Beauty, Embodiment, and ‘Enracing’ 21! Beauty as Work: Khadija Hussein, ‘Award-Winning Stylist and Celebrity Make-Up Artist’ 30! Learning to Conduct Myself in the Field: A Worthy Demeanour and the Importance of My Mum 35! Making Networks: Work Experience, Interviews, Collages, and Catwalks 39! Thesis Outline 43! Chapter One: The Community 46! Asian and Pakistani Identity: Considering Relatedness 50! ‘Typical Asians’ and ‘Pakis’ 51! ‘The Community’ 55! Hard Working Sheffield People: ‘Keeping Yourself to Yourself’ 57! New Migrants: Excluding and Including Eastern Europeans 62! Chapter Two: Fair Skinned Beauty 72! Narratives of Fair-Skinned Heritage: Elite Middle Eastern and Kashmiri Ancestors and Fair Skin of The Mountains 77! Beauty and Fair Skin: Global Narratives of Fame, Piety and Class Identity 80! Whitening and Brightening Beauty Treatments 83! Balance, Fit and Ethnicity 84! Dark South Asian Skin and Darkening Through Class 87! 2 The Power of Fair and Dark Skin 88! Selling Authenticity Through Dark South Asian Skin 95! Making Black Skin Modern: Celebrity Status, Kinship and Piety 98! Chapter Three: Negotiating Beauty and Anxiety: eyebrows, veiling and modelling 102! HD Brows 103! Having ‘Good Intention’ 105! Negotiating Islam as a Beautician who Beautifies Eyebrows 107! Ladies Only Salons 109! Farina’s Story: Treating ‘Good People’ 111! Who Should Veil? Ambivalence and Anxiety 116! Unveiling: Weddings, Parties and Mothers 124! Modelling Anxiety: Local Catwalk Shows 126! Chapter Four: Beauty Work as Paki Work: Law Degrees, Businesswomen and Last Resorts 131! Beauty Work as Paki Work 136! ‘Proper’ Jobs, Making a Real Difference, and the Value of a Caring Profession 137! Natural Skill, Accreditation and Lineages of Asian Bridal MUAs 140! Legitimising Beauty Work Through Kinship 144! Businesswomen 147! Something on Which You Can Rely: Beauty Work and Uncertain Futures 149! A Last Resort: Beauty Work and the Inability to Achieve One’s Dreams 150! Beauty Work as Artwork and Making Political Statements 159! Chapter Five: Becoming An Asian Bridal MUA: A Morning With The Maestro 164! Learning Through Watching 175! Saving Women: Empowerment and Resistance 180! Asian Bridal MUAs as Celebrity Businesswomen 185! Chapter Six: Perfect Unreal Beauty: The Walima Bride 189! Displaying the Bride 195! Beauty as Effort: Creating Something a bit ‘Different Different’ 200! Perfection: ‘Fake’, ‘Doll-Like’ Beauty 207! The Importance of ‘Looking Scruffy’ 211! 3 Conclusion 215! ‘Good Intention’ and Raced Empowerment 215! Beautifying the Right Amount: ‘Natural’ English Beauty and Asian Artifice 220! Hierarchies of Skin Colour and Race: Ordering Whiteness and Darkness 222! Research Expansion 226! Bibliography 230! Table of Figures Figure 1 The wards of Sheffield (Leather 2015b) 12! Figure 2 The percentage of the Pakistani population living in each ward (Leather 2015b) 13! Figure 3 Burngreave shops and railings 49! Figure 4 Modelling at Mangla Fashions: Me, Gabriella and Nayab 95! Figure 5 Kia's artwork: mehendi work, oil painting and a political campaign poster. 162! Figure 6 The Registry/English Bride 198! Figure 7 The Mehendi Bride 199! Figure 8 The Traditional/Walima Bride 199! Figure 9 Before and After portraits. 214! Word Count: 72, 691 4 Abstract My research explores the tension between being and becoming modern and moral for British-born Muslim Pakistani women in Sheffield through an investigation into the judgements that surround beauty, beautification, and beauty work. Through ethnography I unpack the raced and classed regimes in which my interlocutors are embedded, arguing that global Islam and Asian are affiliations that are realised in relation to the English (White British) community. Through comparisons to White British women (referred to as ‘English’ amongst my informants), the young Pakistani women I met negotiate an understanding of themselves and others within a schema of British multiculturalism, in which English are the standard for which to aim. Over the last 10 years, the number of young, British-born Pakistani women in Sheffield who are establishing Ladies Only beauty salons and training as Asian Bridal Make-Up Artists has increased rapidly. These specialised services, catering for Muslim and Asian women respectively, appear at first glance to be conflictual with the notion of piety. In my thesis, I demonstrate how these two narratives overlap and are brought together by the idiom of ‘good intention’, a trope which centres on a discussion of self-esteem and female empowerment. In the everyday, beauty and beautification are judged through perceptions of ‘naturalness’ and ‘balance’, a narrative that gives way to one of beauty-as-effort during celebratory occasions. Whereas everyday beautification is directly linked to the superior beauty and beautification of White English women through discussions of ‘natural’ fair skin and good taste, I suggest that the perception of Asian beauty-as- effort is also compared to perceptions of White English beauty. Although Asian beauty-as-effort and transformation are considered superior to the mere improvement undertaken by White English women during celebratory occasions, forms of beautification thought of as Asian, are used as a measure of the ‘progression’ of the Pakistani community as a whole along a continuum on which the White English community is thought of as the furthest progressed. The popularity of beauty work amongst my informants is due to the perception that such work has high earning potential as well as offering job flexibility and the possibility of being one’s own boss. These positive attributes are troubled, however, by a perception of beauty work as being specifically related to Pakistani women, low-skilled, and potentially immoral. In my thesis, I explore how beauty workers negotiate the negative connotations of beauty work through contemplation of their Islamic faith, kinship relations, and the notion that beauty work is just a hobby or a stepping stone to ‘proper’ work within a graduate profession. 5 Declaration No portion of the work referred to in the thesis has been submitted in support of an application for another degree or qualification of this or any other university or other institute of learning. Copyright Statement I. The author of this thesis (including any appendices and/or schedules to this thesis) owns certain copyright or related rights in it (the “Copyright”) and s/he has given The University of Manchester certain rights to use such Copyright, including for administrative purposes. Ii. Copies of this thesis, either in full or in extracts and whether in hard or electronic copy, may be made only in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended) and regulations issued under it or, where appropriate, in accordance with licensing agreements which the University has from time to time. This page must form part of any such copies made. Iii. The ownership of certain Copyright, patents, designs, trade marks and other intellectual property (the “Intellectual Property”) and any reproductions of copyright works in the thesis, for example graphs and tables (“Reproductions”), which may be described in this thesis, may not be owned by the author and may be owned by third parties. Such Intellectual Property and Reproductions cannot and must not be made available for use without the prior written permission of the owner(s) of the relevant Intellectual Property and/or Reproductions. Iv. Further information on the conditions under which disclosure, publication and commercialisation of this thesis, the Copyright and any Intellectual Property and/or Reproductions described in it may take place is available in the University IP Policy (see http://documents.manchester.ac.uk/docuinfo.aspx?Docid=487), in any relevant Thesis restriction declarations deposited in the University Library, The University Library’s regulations (see http://www.manchester.ac.uk/library/aboutus/regulations) and in The University’s policy on Presentation of Theses. 6 Acknowledgements Thank you to everyone in Sheffield for allowing me into your salons, studios, shops and homes and answering so patiently all my questions. I learnt so much and am forever grateful and humbled for the experience. I want to extend my particular love and gratitude to Uncle and Aunty. Thank you to Professor Jeanette Edwards and Dr Petra Tjitske for reading all my drafts and providing continual guidance and support over the past four years. I want to also thank Madeleine Reeves, Angela De Souza Torresan and Michelle Obeid for reading and commenting on my work. Thank you too Professor Shirley Anne Tate and Professor Peter Wade for their helpful questions and detailed suggestions which shaped my thesis. Thank you to my fellow PhD colleagues for your friendship and academic guidance: Rachel Smith; Rachel Gore; Alba Valenciano Mane; Sophia Gonzalez; Deana Jovanovic; Ines Ponte; Patricia Scalco; Sinead O’Sullven; Jong Min Jeong; Adam Brisley; Ivan Rajkovic and Theodoros Kyriakides Thank you to my mum, dad, Reuben, and Harry Bow and to my grandparents, uncles, aunties and cousins for all your love and motivation. Thank you especially to Cousin Tim for allowing me to live in his house and to Marb and Pa for all the candle lighting and letters. I would also like to extend my thanks to Fiona Devine for her inspiration and encouragement over the years. Finally, and importantly, I would like to thank my dear friends for their seemingly endless words of encouragement, for making me laugh and not becoming fed up with me over the past five years; with particular gratitude to Garth, Kat, Melih, Ellen, Elaine, Ellen P and Zoe.