Hair and Religion in Practice

I was recently talking to a hairdresser (okay, it was the professional who cuts my hair), who owns a salon in New York City, about theology and hair, and specifically about how the practice of cutting hair related to the kinds of worlds of significance from which his clients come. I had not really appreciated that on any given day, a hairdresser/stylist/barber plays a part in sculpting the self of people from a variety of religious/spiritual backgrounds and ways of life. That seemed worth exploring.
As we talked about some things he has observed about connections between different religious-cultural backgrounds and hair choices, he asked whether this topic is studied in theology classes. Not that I knew of, I replied, although others might know. I do come from a field (practical theology) that would be interested, in principle, in how the practice of hairstyling relates to a larger individual-communal life project.
Then I remembered an illustrative short encyclopedia entry by historian of antiquity Prof. Cynthia Baker, now of Bates College (and formerly a colleague when we both taught at Santa Clara University), on the topic of hair practices as religious practices. It is titled “Hair” and can be found in the Encyclopedia of Sex and Gender (Macmillan, 2007), edited by Fedwa Malti-Douglas, pp. 667-669.
I shared the article with the salon owner and re-read it myself. It was a useful reminder about how different traditions, or subtraditions within traditions, find similar practices (in this case, growing or cutting hair, loosening or veiling it, for example) to be of differing religious/spiritual consequence, toward a variety of religious ends. Gender, culture and power will always be found operating in the way religions treat hair practice, she argues. And notably, “Perhaps more so than any other symbolic medium,” Prof. Baker writes, “hair displays the nexus of sexuality with spirituality in its supernatural associations with powers of creation and destruction, life and death.” (p. 667) More than any other symbolic medium? I don’t know, but from inside the salon, that statement sure seems true.
What other adornment practices might practical theology benefit (itself and others) from studying?
Tom Beaudoin, Fordham University