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Decolonising My Body: A Radical Exploration of Rituals and Beauty
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 forty years old, award-winning journalist Afua Hirsch embarked on a journey to reclaim her body from the colonial ideas of purity, adornment and ageing that she--and many of us--absorbed while growing up.
Informed by research from around the world, Hirsch examines how individual and collective notions of what is beautiful are constructed or stripped 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 and how it has affected how we see ourselves. 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 the mainstream beauty standards that aren't serving them.
Upon getting her first tattoo at forty years old, award-winning journalist Afua Hirsch embarked on a journey to reclaim her body from the colonial ideas of purity, adornment and ageing that she--and many of us--absorbed while growing up.
Informed by research from around the world, Hirsch examines how individual and collective notions of what is beautiful are constructed or stripped 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 and how it has affected how we see ourselves. 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 the mainstream beauty standards that aren't serving them.
202 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 19, 2023
26 people are currently reading
1115 people want to read
About the author
Afua Hirsch
15 books176 followersAfua Hirsch is a British writer and broadcaster. She has worked as a journalist for The Guardian newspaper, and was the Social Affairs and Education Editor for Sky News from 2014 until 2017. She is the author of the 2018 book Brit(ish): On Race, Identity and Belonging, receiving a Jerwood Award while writing it.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews
November 17, 2023
After turning forty, Afua Hirsch embarked on what she dubbed her “year of adornment” a mixture of personal and political quest, which used her own experiences as the starting point for a wider inquiry and series of reflections on her disrupted bodily heritage. Her focus is on ways of being in the world, her embodied self and how it echoed her position as a woman of colour who grew up in a predominantly white, Western society. Hirsch wanted to find out more about her lost “ancestral legacies” and how these might trouble Eurocentric notions of physical and spiritual beauty. Her journey takes in puberty rituals and how these connect to rites of passage from the onset of menstruation to menopause. She examines forms of knowledge handed down from generation to generation that sustained and centred women of colour, forms displaced or shattered by the broader project of European colonialism and its devastating impact on notions of the relations between mind and body. An invasive process that was as much spiritual as it was physical, weaponizing belief systems like Christianity.
It's a short book, barely 200 pages but it draws on a rich array of sources from conversations with artists like Majida Khattari to the thoughts of writers like Tsitsi Dangaremgba, Toni Morrison and Audre Lorde. Not quite as incisive as I’d hoped and some sections felt a little too disjointed and meandering at times but still compelling, engaging and intriguing. I found some elements a little eyebrow-raising, possibly because I’m far too steeped in Western concepts of the divide between mind and body. But I was fascinated by much of Hirsch’s discussion particularly the sections on tattoos and scarification, and the exploration of the politics of hair removal which brought in images of the legendary Queen of Sheba to the cultural significance of waist beads to Rihanna’s phenomenally successful make-up line.
Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Square Peg for an ARC
Rating: 3.5
It's a short book, barely 200 pages but it draws on a rich array of sources from conversations with artists like Majida Khattari to the thoughts of writers like Tsitsi Dangaremgba, Toni Morrison and Audre Lorde. Not quite as incisive as I’d hoped and some sections felt a little too disjointed and meandering at times but still compelling, engaging and intriguing. I found some elements a little eyebrow-raising, possibly because I’m far too steeped in Western concepts of the divide between mind and body. But I was fascinated by much of Hirsch’s discussion particularly the sections on tattoos and scarification, and the exploration of the politics of hair removal which brought in images of the legendary Queen of Sheba to the cultural significance of waist beads to Rihanna’s phenomenally successful make-up line.
Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Square Peg for an ARC
Rating: 3.5
March 28, 2023
It is impossible to emphasise how important this book is going to be. I was completely engrossed from the get go, and now, having finished want to go back to the beginning and read it again. There’s so much to learn from Afua’s work and I’ll definitely be reflecting on her words for a long time. I can’t wait to discuss this book once it’s out in the world.
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September 9, 2023Not what I expected — better.
January 7, 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.
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 of decolonial and feminist literature. She weaves these complex ideas into her stories with such ease, offering so many layers of meaning and depth to the book.
I found it hard to sometimes follow the thread of the story as many times there are sub stories but overall the message got through. I am not sure if someone who has no knowledge could follow this tbh. My favourite part was the chapter on tattooing and reclaiming this practise.
I found it hard to sometimes follow the thread of the story as many times there are sub stories but overall the message got through. I am not sure if someone who has no knowledge could follow this tbh. My favourite part was the chapter on tattooing and reclaiming this practise.
December 30, 2024
Ahh Afua, your writing, just gorgeous! Loved it, learnt so much. Will stay with me, lots to reflect on.
September 10, 2024
Beautiful person, beautiful writing! Could read books by Afua over and over!
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 her heritage as a black woman, and the broader societal issues this throws up.
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, its most insidious weapon. There are some things about embodiment that are obvious – how we dress, for instance, or what gets classified and attractive, what Angela McCraken calls
The Beauty Trade
– while there are others that are less obvious – how we stand or walk. Much of the discourse of colonialism centres on bodies, as we see in the language of ‘the brute’, in the myths of ‘licentiousness’ and ‘seductive, exotic beauty’.
In this engaging exploration of what bodies mean, Afua Hirsch, a British-based, Ghanaian descent journalist unravels some of the ways her Black body has been shaped by those practices of coloniality. She does this by focusing on four aspects of embodiment – blood, by which she means puberty; beauty, an exploration of body hair; sexuality, as exoticisation and eroticisation; and skin, much of which focuses on tattooing – in a sense adorned skin. Along the way she unpicks histories and rituals, stories and activities that have been suppressed and repressed in the interests of legitimating a particular image and form of women’s embodiment. Along the way she discusses puberty rituals, the Queen of Sheba (the known historical figure), Cardi B’s and Megan Thee Stallion’s body modifications, the craft of tattooing manually (without a mechanical gun), and the racial politics of tattooing in South Africa.
Not surprisingly, given the focus on her own embodiment, this is a strangely intimate book, as we learn a lot about Hirsch’s past, her family, and her sense of who she is. This is accompanied by a clear affirmation that she is in a different position than many in the African diaspora in that not having descended from the enslaved, she knows or can locate much about her past and her family. This close story-telling means that she is also able to unpick generational shifts and understandings also, in places drawing contrasts with her mother and grandmother as well as her daughter; it is a sign of her skill as a writer and that of her editor that we see enough to recognise the differences but not so much that we intrude.
Amid all of this, she is good at keeping a sense of proportion and retaining a sense of the complexities and subtleties of the ways the body is controlled. She also powerfully reminds us that it is not all subtlety, which a closing section where she begins to look a death with its haunting absences and presences in Black diasporic lives – but that’s only after taking us to Rio de Janeiro’s Cemetery of the New Blacks. Here, in a scene she visited also in her TV documentary Enslaved co-hosted with Samuel L Jackson, we visit a mass grave of around 30,000 people who survived capture, sale, the Middle Passage, and more only to die and remain marked in the ‘New World’: some colonisation of bodies was and is anything but subtle.
The final aspect of the book’s intimacy is that in being personal it becomes relatable, and has a degree of the general about it – it’s that sociologist’s notion of the general in the specific that some good journalism does well. This is much more than a journalistic discussion, but Hirsch brings her journalist’s sensibility to it, making the complex and difficult engaging and accessible – and that makes it all the more valuable.
In this engaging exploration of what bodies mean, Afua Hirsch, a British-based, Ghanaian descent journalist unravels some of the ways her Black body has been shaped by those practices of coloniality. She does this by focusing on four aspects of embodiment – blood, by which she means puberty; beauty, an exploration of body hair; sexuality, as exoticisation and eroticisation; and skin, much of which focuses on tattooing – in a sense adorned skin. Along the way she unpicks histories and rituals, stories and activities that have been suppressed and repressed in the interests of legitimating a particular image and form of women’s embodiment. Along the way she discusses puberty rituals, the Queen of Sheba (the known historical figure), Cardi B’s and Megan Thee Stallion’s body modifications, the craft of tattooing manually (without a mechanical gun), and the racial politics of tattooing in South Africa.
Not surprisingly, given the focus on her own embodiment, this is a strangely intimate book, as we learn a lot about Hirsch’s past, her family, and her sense of who she is. This is accompanied by a clear affirmation that she is in a different position than many in the African diaspora in that not having descended from the enslaved, she knows or can locate much about her past and her family. This close story-telling means that she is also able to unpick generational shifts and understandings also, in places drawing contrasts with her mother and grandmother as well as her daughter; it is a sign of her skill as a writer and that of her editor that we see enough to recognise the differences but not so much that we intrude.
Amid all of this, she is good at keeping a sense of proportion and retaining a sense of the complexities and subtleties of the ways the body is controlled. She also powerfully reminds us that it is not all subtlety, which a closing section where she begins to look a death with its haunting absences and presences in Black diasporic lives – but that’s only after taking us to Rio de Janeiro’s Cemetery of the New Blacks. Here, in a scene she visited also in her TV documentary Enslaved co-hosted with Samuel L Jackson, we visit a mass grave of around 30,000 people who survived capture, sale, the Middle Passage, and more only to die and remain marked in the ‘New World’: some colonisation of bodies was and is anything but subtle.
The final aspect of the book’s intimacy is that in being personal it becomes relatable, and has a degree of the general about it – it’s that sociologist’s notion of the general in the specific that some good journalism does well. This is much more than a journalistic discussion, but Hirsch brings her journalist’s sensibility to it, making the complex and difficult engaging and accessible – and that makes it all the more valuable.
February 1, 2025
I really enjoyed this book. Hirsch raised some really interesting points about the standards of beauty in society and who decides what is acceptable or appropriate. I liked the links to her history and ancestry and the things that I believe we have all discarded as Black and Brown people. There are so many rites of passage and traditions that have been discarded or lost as we have assimilated and accepted western ways. It’s that battle with colonisation, enslavement and racism as we have lost and found ourselves.
A rallying cry for all minoritised people to consider what we do with and to our bodies and who says we can’t.
A rallying cry for all minoritised people to consider what we do with and to our bodies and who says we can’t.
March 8, 2025
Saw this gem in the library and was immediately intrigued. Did not disappoint! Really loved the writer's tone of voice and found the topics super interesting.
Found myself smiling and hugging the book when I finished reading it, so that must mean something, right? What a delight!
Found myself smiling and hugging the book when I finished reading it, so that must mean something, right? What a delight!
May 7, 2025
4.5/5 - beautiful writing, I’m now obsessed with Afua Hirsch and must find a copy of Brit(ish) immediately
June 5, 2025
Sooo incredible !!
October 24, 2024
Beautiful, thoughtful and powerful writing. Afua’s work is so important and deeply inspiring. I will cherish her words.
November 23, 2024
An Important read for understanding some forgotten facts post colonialism!
January 18, 2024
This book is about Hirsch reclaiming her body, empowerment and learning and embracing your background and ancestors. This is Hirsch's own 'Eat Pray and Love' except it is so much more better.
It is a quest for seeking out her lost ancestral legacies which has been distrupted by colonialism, globalisation, capitalism, totalitarianism and conflict. Whilst deconstructing Western and European ideologies. Such a powerful and inspiring read that is exceptionally written. Deeply moving and really does make you want to tap into your ancestral background a must-read book. 4.85*
Quotes/
'People of today, how small you are beside your ancestors.' ~ Proverb from ancient Mali.
'We wish two things for our children: the first is roots; second is wings. ~ Sudanese Proverb.
'You don't get to choose the circumstance of your birth or privilege. But you do get to choose what you do with it, whether you enjoy it quietly to the continuing detriment of others, or whether you make yourself useful in exposing how it works.'
'The strength of the stream is diminished after entering the river.' ~Akan Proverb.
Meaning: your status here, is different in another land.
'That the story we inherit from our ancestors shapes us. And one of the things it empowers us to do is found a new lineage, honouring its stories, and our own.'
'Although the ocean is massive and powerful, it was preceded by the rock.' ~ Akan proverb.
It is a quest for seeking out her lost ancestral legacies which has been distrupted by colonialism, globalisation, capitalism, totalitarianism and conflict. Whilst deconstructing Western and European ideologies. Such a powerful and inspiring read that is exceptionally written. Deeply moving and really does make you want to tap into your ancestral background a must-read book. 4.85*
Quotes/
'People of today, how small you are beside your ancestors.' ~ Proverb from ancient Mali.
'We wish two things for our children: the first is roots; second is wings. ~ Sudanese Proverb.
'You don't get to choose the circumstance of your birth or privilege. But you do get to choose what you do with it, whether you enjoy it quietly to the continuing detriment of others, or whether you make yourself useful in exposing how it works.'
'The strength of the stream is diminished after entering the river.' ~Akan Proverb.
Meaning: your status here, is different in another land.
'That the story we inherit from our ancestors shapes us. And one of the things it empowers us to do is found a new lineage, honouring its stories, and our own.'
'Although the ocean is massive and powerful, it was preceded by the rock.' ~ Akan proverb.
October 17, 2023
Having loved Hirsch's 'Brit-ish', I was delighted to see that her new book picked up on similar ideas and took them further, acting as a wise and insightful book on the ways that we move through the world.
Mining through her family history, and looking to the future, Hirsch walks the reader through a set of personal and thoughtful reflections on what it means to give yourself to the world, whether capitalism or your family, what it means to wear certain styles of clothing and hair, and what it means to resist the received ideas of what is 'correct.'
She is a writer who I always find deeply engaging for the ways that she does not need to find a concrete answer to be satisfied that the journey was worth it.
I received a digital copy of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Mining through her family history, and looking to the future, Hirsch walks the reader through a set of personal and thoughtful reflections on what it means to give yourself to the world, whether capitalism or your family, what it means to wear certain styles of clothing and hair, and what it means to resist the received ideas of what is 'correct.'
She is a writer who I always find deeply engaging for the ways that she does not need to find a concrete answer to be satisfied that the journey was worth it.
I received a digital copy of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
October 21, 2023
I was very kindly given an e-ARC of this book via Netgalley and Random House / Square Peg.
It may be short book, but Afua Hirsch packs a mighty punch with a deep exploration of beauty and rituals, more specifically related to her own heritage. Not dissimilarly to Emma Daibiri's recent book 'Disobedient Bodies', it attempts to deconstruct the Western ideals of beauty as the author goes on their own journey to discovering radical self-acceptance. Regardless of who you are, I think there's something to be gained from this book, even if it's just how unattainable so many standards of beauty are and how we should be listening to our own bodies and doing things that are good for us rather than trying to fit into an impossible mould given to use by people on Instagram.
'Decolonising My Body' is available now.
It may be short book, but Afua Hirsch packs a mighty punch with a deep exploration of beauty and rituals, more specifically related to her own heritage. Not dissimilarly to Emma Daibiri's recent book 'Disobedient Bodies', it attempts to deconstruct the Western ideals of beauty as the author goes on their own journey to discovering radical self-acceptance. Regardless of who you are, I think there's something to be gained from this book, even if it's just how unattainable so many standards of beauty are and how we should be listening to our own bodies and doing things that are good for us rather than trying to fit into an impossible mould given to use by people on Instagram.
'Decolonising My Body' is available now.
May 18, 2025
4/5 ⭐️: compelling account of one woman’s journey to free her body from colonial ideas and Eurocentric beauty standards. After turning 40, Afua Hirsch embarked on a new phase in her life, seeking to reconnect with her heritage and unlock a deeper spirituality. This book is the result. Hirsch takes the reader on a journey as she works through issues like periods, body hair, and unpacking her identity as a mixed-race Black British woman. I really appreciated that this wasn’t a self-help book, but more of an invitation to gently un-learn and re-learn in conversation with others. The emphasis on community and ancestors was really important and I’ve been about this lots since I finished reading.
October 16, 2023
Decolonising My Body was like a conversation with a wise friend who has thought deeply about the issues you've vaguely considered but never examined fully.
Hirsch navigates white supremacy and late stage capitalism by going back to basics, listening to her own body and the words and traditions of her ancestors. There's a message for all of us here, asking us to examine our own preconceptions and actions, asking whether they're helpful for us to hold on to. Have we discarded older healthy ways of being in the quest for conformity with ideals we don't even believe in?
A very thought provoking read.
Hirsch navigates white supremacy and late stage capitalism by going back to basics, listening to her own body and the words and traditions of her ancestors. There's a message for all of us here, asking us to examine our own preconceptions and actions, asking whether they're helpful for us to hold on to. Have we discarded older healthy ways of being in the quest for conformity with ideals we don't even believe in?
A very thought provoking read.
May 5, 2024
I wish this had been longer!
This is a beautiful and rich exploration of a very personal level for Hirsch, who in this book describes her year-long journey to connect with her heritage and seek ancestral wisdom. The journey ties into the body in many ways, and I found the chapter on tattoos especially wonderful.
The only tiny minus points come from the celebrity anecdotes, which, aside from the Oprah one at the beginning of the book, we could’ve also done without, I think.
Thank you to the publisher for sending me a review copy.
This is a beautiful and rich exploration of a very personal level for Hirsch, who in this book describes her year-long journey to connect with her heritage and seek ancestral wisdom. The journey ties into the body in many ways, and I found the chapter on tattoos especially wonderful.
The only tiny minus points come from the celebrity anecdotes, which, aside from the Oprah one at the beginning of the book, we could’ve also done without, I think.
Thank you to the publisher for sending me a review copy.
November 7, 2023
Incredible!
I thought this would be…actually I expected it to be a political narrative on Western ideas of beauty. Instead I found a beautiful ode to culture, spirituality and heritage.
I found roots that led me to people I didn’t know I was connected to. I found a language to describe femininity not only as I experienced it but as generations before me did.
Difficult truths, entangled realities and blurry lines that separate what was with what is.
Wild and beautiful story by a story teller I truly truly admire.
I thought this would be…actually I expected it to be a political narrative on Western ideas of beauty. Instead I found a beautiful ode to culture, spirituality and heritage.
I found roots that led me to people I didn’t know I was connected to. I found a language to describe femininity not only as I experienced it but as generations before me did.
Difficult truths, entangled realities and blurry lines that separate what was with what is.
Wild and beautiful story by a story teller I truly truly admire.
November 18, 2025
A power book about how colonisation affects the way you view your own body. Afua Hirsch a British writer racialised as black considers how she has been and continues to be manipulated by forces beyond her to see herself, her body and those of her children as objects to be exploited. Powerful and thought provoking. I listened to the audio book read by the author on Spotify.
September 18, 2024
This book is a must read. Particularly if you are a black woman of the diaspora wanting to release yourself from the impact and dissociation of colonialism and its influence of how we may perceive ourselves.
This book is an opportunity to discover the self.
This book is an opportunity to discover the self.
September 18, 2025
It's so hard for me to put into words the impact this book has had on me.
The book is a love letter from Afua to herself but also to the reader. Every word is a warm embrace. It soothes wounds you avoided and those you didn't know you had.
The book is a love letter from Afua to herself but also to the reader. Every word is a warm embrace. It soothes wounds you avoided and those you didn't know you had.
March 28, 2024
This was beautiful, although it got a bit dry at times. I marked up quite a lot of sections.
Read
September 28, 2024This was a radical book, in the sense of all the history and racism it is fighting against. Brilliant brilliant book
November 12, 2024
In Decolonising My Body, Afua Hirsch embarks on an introspective journey to reclaim her physical and cultural identity, confronting how colonial legacies have shaped her perception of self and body. Through personal experiences (I loved the Oprah anecdote) and historical insights, Hirsch skillfully unveils the deep-rooted effects of colonialism on body image, health ideals, and cultural practices, encouraging readers to explore their own histories and untangle inherited narratives. Her work is both a memoir and a call to action, with key messages on self-discovery, healing from the lingering impact of colonial ideals, and embracing the diversity of human bodies.
As a white western woman, I found this book to be very real eye-opening and thought provoking. Whilst my experience is clearly different to that of Hirsch, I was empathetic to her experiences and found more parallels that I would have expected.
Hirsch’s empathetic and reflective style bridges memoir and social commentary, making her observations accessible and engaging. Ultimately, Decolonising My Body is an empowering exploration of autonomy and self-acceptance, inviting readers to embrace their heritage and celebrate the body’s role in personal and cultural identity without external pressures to conform.
As a white western woman, I found this book to be very real eye-opening and thought provoking. Whilst my experience is clearly different to that of Hirsch, I was empathetic to her experiences and found more parallels that I would have expected.
Hirsch’s empathetic and reflective style bridges memoir and social commentary, making her observations accessible and engaging. Ultimately, Decolonising My Body is an empowering exploration of autonomy and self-acceptance, inviting readers to embrace their heritage and celebrate the body’s role in personal and cultural identity without external pressures to conform.
August 4, 2025
Got here after reading Brit(ish) last year!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews