Common Threads: The Value of Threading Salons in South Asian Diaspora

Abstract

This thesis explores how South Asian–owned and operated eyebrow threading salons function as critical sites of capital, culture, and community for South Asian women living in diasporic contexts. This study addresses a lack of academic attention to personal care businesses as spaces of cultural, social, and economic value. It centers around the question: How do eyebrow threading salons serve as cultural, economic, and social infrastructure among South Asian diasporic communities? Using Jackson Heights, Queens, as a case study, I employ a mixed-methods approach including interviews and community surveys, participant observation, and spatial analysis. This study suggests that these salons serve not only as low-barrier pathways to entrepreneurship and employment, but also as informal hubs of social support and cultural identity formation. This project contributes to planning and immigrant labor scholarship by centering the everyday spaces that sustain women’s lives and livelihoods through intimate, affective, and often undervalued forms of work.