This book analyses human hair as a commodity as it traverses different social, cultural and economic contexts. It explores the meanings attributed to hair by the women donating it at Indian temples, and by those wearing it in Finland and South Africa. As an investigation into hair, it continues the long tradition in sociology that turns to small, everyday phenomena to interrogate more abstract, large-scale systems. The circulation and various uses of hair are explored through underlying inequalities connected to neoliberal capitalist processes and colonial continuities. The author unravels the effects of such macrostructures on women’s economic position and social worth, which shape and are shaped by hair.

This volume will be of interest to students and scholars across the social sciences researching transnationality and consumption, global inequality, beauty and hierarchies of human value. It will also interest anyone wishing to learn about the intricacies of hair and women’s everyday life in the Global North and South.