Humour and Social Protest: An Introduction

Abstract

In the introduction to this volume, the author explains why social historians should study the relationship between humour and social protest in the past. The following questions are of interest. Under what conditions did laughter serve the cause of the protesters? How did humour strengthen social protest? And to what degree has humour been an effective tool for contentious social movements? Recent developments in the field of social movement theory regarding framing, collective identity, and emotions are combined with insights from humorology. A short account of the individual contributions follow: they range from the Zapatistas in Mexico to Vietnamese garment workers, from sixteenth-century Augsburg to Madrid and Stockholm in the 1990s. The findings point, above all, to the power of humour in the framing of political protest. Humour was used in quite different political opportunity structures, from open democratic societies to harsh repressive regimes. Often, humour furthered the development of the collective identity of a social movement, whereas in several cases humour acted as a powerful communication tool, serving as a true “weapon of the weak”.

Some Critical Reflections About Politically Incorrect Humour at Contemporaneity

“…Critical humour is also similar with Hart's (2008) proposition of humour as "weapon of the weak". While, correlating the idea of "state of exception" formulated in a genealogical way by Agamben (2004) with the inverted idea that uncritical humour (and specifically in the case of "uncritical politically incorrect humour", as I am proposing within this article) is oppressed nowadays, otherwise of being understood as important weapon SOME CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ABOUT POLITICALLY INCORRECT HUMOUR 490 for the discourses of the oppressors.…”

“No es una crisis, es que ya no te quiero". Humor y protesta en el movimiento 15M

“…El humor es, por tanto, no solo un proceso cognitivo sino también emocional. De hecho, puede entenderse como una emoción en sí misma (para un debate doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.3989/ris.2016.74.3.039 sobre esta cuestión, véase por ejemplo Hart 2007). Sin embargo, algunos psicólogos prefieren distinguir el humor de la emoción que provoca su percepción y que han venido a llamar apreciación humorística (Weisfeld 1993), alegría (Ruch 1993) o júbilo (Martin 2007).…”

“…En el área específica de los movimientos sociales, la relevancia alcanzada por el estudio de las emociones en las últimas dos décadas (véase Goodwin, Jasper y Polletta 2001; no se ha traducido en un interés particular hacia el humor como, por otra parte, sí parece haberlo hecho en áreas más o menos afines, como la historia social (Hart 2007). Dentro de los escasos trabajos dedicados al humor y la protesta social destacan los centrados en el potencial subversivo del humor político en contextos represivos y no-democráticos (e.g., Pi-Sunyer 1977;Brandes 1977;Kenney 2003;Romanienko 2007;Merziger 2007;Davies 2007;Lewis 2008;Sorensen 2008;Oushakine 2012;Mersal 2011).…”

Jokes in Iran

“…Political jokes fall into two main groups: those that denigrate political figures by representing them as stupid, tyrant, and unpopular; and exposure jokes that inform the public of the politicians' corruption or their abuse of power. Political jokes are hostile in nature and are exchanged in protest against the status quo (Kulynych 1997;Hart 2007). Text messages exchanged from Tahrir Square in Egypt before Mubarak's departure, saying, for instance, "Talk to him in Hebrew, he might understand", are the most recent examples of jokes serving the agenda of political protest.…”

“…In addition, they (52%) agreed that these jokes carry a political agenda (item 12). In most cases, political jokes reflect the people's disapproval of the politicians' decisions in response to the high-stake issues (Kulynych 1997;Hart 2007). For example, people have recently spread jokes to react against the state strategy of 'economy of resistance', which was developed to curb the impact of international sanctions on the country.…”