Melenas Malcriadas: The Black aesthetics of hair and Dominicanidad

“Melenas Malcriadas: The Black Aesthetics of Hair and Dominicanidad” untangles the intricate braiding of contradictions and hypocrisies of the Dominican racial paradigm within the national and collective diasporic imaginary. Versions of Blackness embedded in natural hair care function as acts of refusal to conform to an “official” record of the State. This work aims to interrupt narratives of dominicanidad that undermine racial and gendered implications of Dominican patria in contrast to the role of the figure of the malcriada: that unruly, undisciplined, and “uneducated” woman who is always already racialized and sexualized as “not-white” and untamed. This project emphasizes the process of haircare, with chapters titled CONDITION, SET, STRAIGHTEN, CUT, PROTECT, WASH & GO, to underscore the temporal and aesthetic markers of haircare that work with and against the Dominican aesthetic imaginary always already oriented toward aspirational whiteness.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Spanish

Grantor

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2025

Author dc:creator

• Leonardo, Gisabel

Contributors dc:contributor

• Garcia-Blizzard, Monica
• Melendez, Mariselle
• Fornoff, Carolyn
• Cacho, Lisa M

• Aesthetics
• Blackness
• Hair
• Dominican Republic

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2025 Gisabel Leonardo

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/129531

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F129531