Dutta, Nandita; (2024) MAPPING INTIMACY: The South Asian Beauty Salon in London and the Production of Diasporic Space. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

Through an ethnographic study of two beauty salons in London owned, run and frequented by first-generation migrant women from India, Pakistan, Nepal and Afghanistan, this thesis seeks to examine the semi-private space of a beauty salon as a site in which South Asian migrant women may potentially forge intimacies and solidarities. It situates itself at the intersection of literatures addressing alternative forms of intimacy outside the home and the family, the socio-political value of beauty salons and diasporic placemaking. This study argues that a collective pursuit of normative femininity through beauty leads to intimacy in the beauty salon. However, when migrant women come together in an all-women’s space, shared experiences of gender also lead to a collective articulation of resistance to gender norms. Through ‘women’s talk’ as well as practical acts of support, the South Asian beauty salon emerges as a localised support system for first-generation migrant women who are geographically separated from familial and community support networks. Salon owners, beauticians and clients collectively produce the salon as a home away from home, which is reminiscent of the homeland, thereby producing ethnic intimacy. This thesis shows how ‘South Asian’ becomes a useful heuristic to capture the nature of this diasporic space. When we speak of a South Asian diasporic space, however, such a space can hardly be understood as a neutral or secular one. This study argues that diasporic intimacy unfolds along religious lines instead of national boundaries by demonstrating how the two salons are produced as Hindu and Muslim spaces respectively. Finally, this thesis looks at whether the South Asian beauty salon supports or suppresses intimacy with racial others. It argues that by creating a hierarchy of white clients as most desirable and black clients as least desirable, beauticians consolidate the category of South Asians as ‘our people’, the only ones with whom intimacy is truly possible in the beauty salon. This study, then, illustrates the practices of both intimacy and boundary-making that produce the South Asian beauty salon in London as a diasporic space for women.

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