Humor, Unlaughter, and Boundary Maintenance

Smith, Moira

doi:10.2307/20487675

Cited by 55 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…The examination of social relations reveals how structure, culture, and interaction interpenetrate. If interaction is a performance, it is a performance that is shaped to satisfy an audience (Smith 2009). Performances are not only set in place, but rely on a social cartography .…”

Section: The Ethnography Of the Localmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Sociology of the Local: Action and its Publics

Fine¹

2010

Sociological Theory

142

120

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Sociology requires a robust theory of how local circumstances create social order. When we analyze social structures not recognizing that they depend on groups with collective pasts and futures that are spatially situated and that are based on personal relations, we avoid a core sociological dimension: the importance of local context in constituting social worlds. Too often this has been the sociological stance, both in micro-sociological studies that examine interaction as untethered from local traditions and in research that treats culture as autonomous from action and choice. Building on theories of action, group dynamics, and micro-cultures, I argue that a sociology of the local solves critical theoretical problems. The local is a stage on which social order gets produced and a lens for understanding how particular forms of action are selected. Treating ethnographic studies as readings of ongoing cultures, I examine how the continuing and referential features of group life (spatial arenas, relations, shared pasts) generate action and argue that local practices provide the basis for cultural extension, influencing societal expectations through the linkages among groups.For myself, I always write about Dublin, because if I can get to the heart of Dublin, I can get to the heart of all cities of the world. In the particular is contained the universal. (James Joyce)In his provocative, transformative fashion, emphasizing the power of the local, James Joyce posed a challenge for thinking about society. For insights to be universal, they must be local first. This, of course, is the novelist's creed. Each story describes a scene, but each must brim with insight, convincing audiences that the act of reading is not voyeurism, but education. The places, the actions, and the persons depicted stand for more than themselves.In arguing for a sociology built on the local, I embrace the Joycean challenge: How does attention to the local create the conditions for general theoretical analysis? In some regards this confronts much of sociology, a discipline committed to examining how broad and unseen structural realities ("social facts") overwhelm or even erase the specific characteristics of place, identity, and apparent idiosyncrasies of group life. This is not to deny the presence of micro-sociology, but often micro-sociologists, just as macrosociologists, strive to discover transcendent forces or generic processes (Couch 1984;Prus 1987), relying on methodological individualism. Yet, the group represents a distinctive sociological meso-level of analysis, a level that too often

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Section: The Ethnography Of the Localmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Sociology of the Local: Action and its Publics

Fine¹

2010

Sociological Theory

142

120

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Eko 2007). Certain of these images are intended to provoke laughter, while others are orientated towards eliciting unlaughter (Billig 2005; Smith 2009). The representation of Stan Mudenge (Minister for Higher Education) as the ‘Mumbo Jumbo snake’ entwined by two female snakes caricatures his reputed playboy lifestyle and sexual activities, while giving the impression of an aging and harmless snake (Figure 1).…”

Section: A Dangerous Game Of Snakes and Ladders: Resistance And Powermentioning

confidence: 99%

Resistance, power and geopolitics in Zimbabwe

Hammett

2010

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In 2006 two pieces of Zimbabwean political ephemera began circulating, caricaturing senior political and military officials. The anonymously produced objects -a Guide to Dangerous Snakes in Zimbabwe and a deck of playing cards -present criticisms of an authoritarian regime within a curtailed public sphere. They capture and represent context-specific power relations, politics and resistance in postcolonial Zimbabwe. Critical engagement with these ephemera highlights challenges to the process of democracy, contests over power and resistance within Zimbabwe, and engagement with international dimensions to these concerns. The paper also extends recent critical geopolitical work on political satire in Africa.

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“…However, we would like to point out that in our research material, we saw some noticeable signs of critical positions towards this kind of Russian humour (e.g. Ukrainian outrage against Urgant) expressed in "un-laughter"the refusal to laugh in the face of structural inequality and domination (Smith 2009). This observation has also been made in an earlier study by Minchenia (2016), which analyses the Belarusian Internet audience's reception of Russian cartoons and shows mocking Lukashenka.…”

mentioning

confidence: 77%