The Politics of Joking: Anthropological Engagements

Description

This book engages anthropologically with humor as political expression. It reveals how humor is in many instances central to human efforts to cope with political struggle and significant to understanding power dynamics in socio-political life. The chapters examine humor and joking activities across a diverse range of geographic areas and cultural contexts. The contributors consider humor as it is constituted in political anxiety, aggression and power, and when it becomes a tool to resist, repair, reconcile or make a moral claim. Collectively they demonstrate that humor can provide a powerful critique, a non-violent form of political protest and the space for restoration of human dignity.   Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents List of figures List of contributors Preface Acknowledgments Introduction Comic legacy and satirical voice in anthropological text The Politics of Joking: ambiguity, incongruity and absurdity References 1. You’ve got to be joking: Asserting the analytical value of humour and laughter in contemporary anthropology Acknowledgment Notes References 2. Disaster humor in an age of truth-bending politics The humor of mediatized politics, disaster, and the supernatural Vampire earthquakes and critiquing disaster management Conclusion: disaster and the absurd Notes References 3. “Joke” elections: Satirical activism and political opposition in Lithuania’s electoral politics “Joke” elections Satirical activism Conclusion Notes Notes References 4. When the fearful becomes funny: Joke-work in the midst of violence The violence of May 2000 Specters of uncertainty The fearful familiar George Speight and other jokes Theories of ethnic humor Incongruity and repression Jokes, dreams and the uncanny Liberating incongruity Creating disorder in an already disorderly universe Questioning racial imaginaries through humor Conclusion: knowing when to laugh and when to cry Notes References 5. Humor against forgetting: Joking in the space of death Humor as a method of inquiry Joking relations The joke Performing in the place of hell Humor against forgetting Conclusion Notes References 6. Chisasibi Cree hunters and missionaries: Humor as evidence of tension Reverend Walton: influential Christian Cree–missionary relations: the Cree side of the story Cree–missionary relations re-appraised The Cree view of Christianity and traditional practice Conclusions Notes References 7. Mexican speech play: History and the psychological discourses of power Mexico: the frozen revolution Mexican speech play: the historical emergence of interpretation Interpretation and ideological formation Analysis Conclusion Notes References 8. The flesh of joking relationships: A study of Quechua sexual farce Fieldwork Quechua farces and joking relationships State of the art What does one do while teasing? A polemic stake 1. Future lovers’ routine: a farce between men and women 2. Future mother-in-law and daughter-in-law routine: a female farce Notes References 9. Trickster in the mirror of play and anthropological imagination Play as an attribute of humanity Trickster as a timeless creator and a product of play and the comic Trickster as a paradoxical hero of human evolution Notes References 10. Trump’s two bodies: The trickster-wrestler as a political type Introduction From big men to great men From exemplars to tricksters Why Trump is not (just) a trickster Trump as American wrestler Conclusion References 11. “An army of comedy”: Political jokes and tropic ambiguity in the Trump era Introduction The appropriate incongruity of stand-up routines Tropic ambiguity Comedic contractions How jokes die The shedding of interpretation Conclusion References Afterword: Not all fun and games: The force of humor in political life Incongruity and ambiguity The power of affect Sociality, temporality, and contextual knowledge Acknowledgements References Index