Emma Dabiri


Emma Dabiri is an Irish-Nigerian author, academic, and broadcaster. Her debut book, Don't Touch My Hair, was first published in 2019.

Biography

Dabiri was born in Dublin to a white Irish mother and a Nigerian Yoruba father. After spending her early years in Atlanta, Georgia, her family returned to Dublin when Dabiri was five years of age. She says of her experience growing up isolated and as the target of frequent racism informed her perspective. After school she moved to London to study African Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies, her academic career leading to broadcast work, including hosting BBC Four's Britain's Lost Masterpieces, Channel 4 documentaries such as Is Love Racist?, and a radio show about Afrofuturism among others.
Dabiri is a frequent contributor to print and online media, including The Guardian, Irish Times, Dublin Inquirer, Vice, and others. She has also published in academic journals. Dabiri's outspokenness on issues of race and racism has caused her to have to deal with extreme "trollism" and racist abuse online. She says of this that "it's just words" and the racism she grew up with fortified her to deal with it.
Dabiri lives in London, where she is completing her PhD while also teaching and continuing her broadcast work. She is married and has two children.

''Don't Touch My Hair''

In her book, Emma combines memoir with social commentary and philosophy. She moves beyond the personal to examine African hair in wider contexts, with the book travelling across geographical space and through time to take in pre-colonial Africa up to modern day Western society. Throughout she writes that African hair represents a complex visual language.

Publications