Funerary Comedies in Contemporary Kinshasa: Social Difference, Urban Communities and the Emergence of a Cultural Form

Abstract

The article situates a new type of stand-up comedy, performed in Kinshasa's mourning spaces (matanga), within the city's social universe. This type of funerary joking, enacted by comedians unrelated to the bereaved, represents a clear departure from the customary funerary humour in which accepted jokers occupy particular social positions vis-à-vis the deceased. Following recent changes in the organization of mourning rituals within the circles of Kinshasa's wealthy, these rather intimate events are ever more open to ‘strangers’, who anticipate the spending capacities of the gathered crowd. Comedians constitute one among a wide range of outsider groups who approach the bereaved community as a space of opportunity. It is argued that this emergent cultural form is utterly urban, and could only appear within urban life worlds where conviviality with others, and in particular an understanding of people's need to make a living in precarious circumstances, transforms the mourning community into an audience that pays for a cultural performance. Humour is not only derived from a symbolic difference between the poor and the rich, but also through the performance of exaggerated flattery, producing the illusion of patronage and situating the comedian within a feigned patron–client relationship for the duration of that performance.

Contractual dependencies:

“…Politicians in Kinshasa often make public displays of distributing goods to “vulnerable” populations such as disabled people, orphans, or the elderly. Furthermore, the beggars’ written and oral flattery invokes models of patronage common in many parts of Africa (e.g., Barber ; Irvine ; Vail and White ), and which hold a prominent position in various aspects of Kinois popular culture (e.g., White ; Pype ). Beggars performed deference as a “declaration of dependence” to extract resources (Bonilla ; Penfield ), and the declaration had a coercive edge.…”

Greying mutuality: race and joking relations in a South African nursing home

“…In Africa and the African diaspora more broadly, joking and humorous enactments, like the one described above, are said to do many things 2 . My interpretive approach aligns with those who argue that, in multicultural postcolonial societies and along their borders, joking operates to mediate cultural, ethnic and class differences among diverse groups in both everyday and high-stakes events (Diallo 2006; Pype 2015; Devlieger 2018). Another key dimension of this approach that also originates in Africa is that joking mediates intergenerational relationships and, in turn, may reaffirm obligation and hierarchy among age groups (Radcliffe-Brown 1952; 1940; 1949; Drucker-Brown 1982; Rosenberg 2009).…”

Romeand theRomains: laughter on the border between Kinshasa and Brazzaville

“…In such terms, this ‘indirect’ joking resembled Mbembe's homo ludens in a social context, playing with power relations yet doing little to change them beyond the circumstances of play, and so reinforcing hierarchies of power (cf. Pype 2015). But while humour was a way of playing with and confirming power, it was also a sincere manner through which people commented on, shaped and made meaning out of reality.…”

“…Pype's stand-up comedians celebrate ‘tough guy’ yankees and mock ‘fools’ ( yumas ) and thus reinforce anti-valeurs (2015: 472), but the more spontaneous humour at the border was frequently more ambivalent. In their subversive statements, Anique defended herself while Vincent was corrected.…”