Laughter in Oral Histories of Displacement: “One Goes on a Mission to Solve Their Problems”

Abstract

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‘The Pawns That They Moved Here and There’? Microacts, Room for Manoeuvre, and Everyday Agency in the 1974 Cyprus Conflict

“…31 Petros's narrative is also marked by frequent recourse to humour and laughter, a topic that remains understudied in the literature on oral history. 32 Both humour and laughter in oral testimonies may function in part to ease the narration of difficult or traumatic experiences, but they also reflect what Ned Norrick calls the 'humorous dual perspective' that arises from a narrator re-evaluating their actions and assumptions in the past based on their knowledge and identity today. 33 Indeed, it can be suggested that Petros's laughter when relating incidents such as the renaming of Ms Greece or the plan for evading an aerial attack on the car is connected to the fact that these tactics were ultimately not required (Petros and co. were neither captured nor attacked on the road) and, consequently, what seemed at the time to be of utmost importance and severity may appear in retrospect incongruous, inconceivable or even absurd.…”

“…33 Indeed, it can be suggested that Petros's laughter when relating incidents such as the renaming of Ms Greece or the plan for evading an aerial attack on the car is connected to the fact that these tactics were ultimately not required (Petros and co. were neither captured nor attacked on the road) and, consequently, what seemed at the time to be of utmost importance and severity may appear in retrospect incongruous, inconceivable or even absurd. 34 To build on Norrick's observations, laughter allows Petros to adopt two different identities in his testimony: one emphasizing his agency, creativity and the meaningfulness of his microacts given what he knew at the time, and the other demonstrating retrospective self-awareness of the limitations and incongruities of these acts. 35 Another Cyprus Project interviewee -Kyriakos Koudonas, born 1925was at home in Lapithos to the west of Kyrenia on 20 July.…”