Just jokes! Icebreakers, innuendo, teasing and talking: The role of humour in HIV/AIDS peer education among university students

Abstract

Peer conversation provides an important platform for people to explore and disseminate sexual health knowledge. Humour forms part of conversations held between peers including those where sexual health and sexual decisions are discussed. The central argument of this article links conversation, humour and peer education. Drawing on interviews and diaries kept by 12 student peer educators over a two-month period in a South African university, the article explores the forms and functions of humour in instigating and encouraging informal peer education between young people in a university setting. The evidence shows that humour can foster intimacy, familiarity and camaraderie in peer interactions; keeps conversation moving; and acts as a gateway to discussion of taboo, personal and private subjects that lie at the core of effective peer education. Components of humour (joking, teasing, innuendo, provocation) and the transformation of the serious (and boring) into the enjoyable (and accessible) are found in these peer interactions. However, humour can also limit communication by keeping conversations light and superficial or, in the case of inappropriate humour, close conversation altogether. Acknowledging the nuances of humour within conversation and peer education allows for a clearer understanding of the ways in which humour contributes to effective health promotion efforts and how it can be used within peer educator practice. The effect of the personality traits of peer educators on effective use of humour in conversation is an area that could benefit from further insight and research.

Youth engagement in HIV prevention intervention research in sub‐Saharan Africa: a scoping review

“…Following our secondary search for studies that described the interventions identified, we found 27 additional manuscripts. Thus, the total number of manuscripts reviewed was 112 [19‐130]. These manuscripts described 74 unique intervention research studies (Table 1) […”

“…About three quarters of studies (56, 76%) had no youth engagement at the pre‐intervention phase [19,22,29,30,32,34,37‐42,44,46‐48,50‐53,55‐58,61‐66,68‐70,73‐86,88‐90,129,130].…”

Location, libation and leisure: An examination of the use of licensed venues to help challenge sexual violence

“…As such, the practices of night-time excess may extend into 'inappropriate' joking becoming an end in its own right. Cooper and Dickinson (2013) identify that such joking can create tense environments that close down discussion completely, again raising concerns as to the extent to which rape prevention campaigns in bars and clubs will be attended to, taken seriously if noticed and their messages internalised.…”

“…So you'd probably just start like sort of taking the mickey out of the content of it [the campaign] (FG6). ' Cooper and Dickinson (2013) identify that humour can act as a 'gateway' to discussing taboo and private subjects with Kramer (2011) also arguing that the framing of a joke can transform a disturbing act into a humorous one without necessarily detracting from the disturbing nature of the act itself. However, there is legitimacy in suggesting that such 'taking the mickey' will be enhanced within the youth focused night-time environment.…”

'Eh! I felt I was sabotaged!': facilitators' understandings of success in a participatory HIV and IPV prevention intervention in urban South Africa

“…Research also identifies how facilitators struggle to operationalize concepts and ideas—often introduced to them in English—into local language and concepts [ 19 , 20 ]. This highlights the on-going issue of the ‘importing’ of interventions into local contexts [ 13 ].…”