Humour and social protest: An introduction

International Review of Social History

Volumn 52, Issue SUPPL. 15, 2007, Pages 1-20

  T Hart, Marjolein ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 36549054013     PISSN: 00208590     EISSN: 1469512X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0020859007003094     Document Type: Article

References (100)

1. Quoted by Colin Barker, "Fear, Laughter, and Collective Power: The Making of Solidarity at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk, Poland, August 1980", in Jeff Goodwin, James M. Jasper, and Francesca Polleta (eds), Passionate Politics; Emotions and Social Movements (Chicago, IL [etc.], 2001) pp. 175-194, 191.
2. Hans Speier, "Wit and Politics: An Essay on Laughter and Power", American Journal of Sociology, 103 (1998), pp. 1352-1401, 1358.
3. Giselinde Kuipers, Good Humor, Bad Taste: A Sociology of the Joke (Berlin [etc.], 2006), p. 230.
4. Rod A. Martin, The Psychology of Humor: An Integrative Approach (Amsterdam [etc.], 2007), p. 24.
5. Barker, "Fear, Laughter, and Collective Power", p. 186. On the dominance of "fear" in much of social protest,
6. see also Jeff Goodwin and Steven Pfaff, "Emotion Work in High-Risk Social Movements: Managing Fear in the US and East German Civil Rights Movements", in Goodwin, Jasper, and Polleta, Passionate Politics, pp. 282-302, 286.
7. Clifford Geertz, "Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture", in idem, The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays (New York, 1973), pp. 3-30;
8. Michel Vovelle, Idéologies et mentalités (Paris, 1982);
9. Peter Burke, Popular Culture in Early Modem Europe (London, 1978);
10. Raphael Samuel and Gareth Stedman Jones (eds), Culture, Ideology and Politics (London 1982).
11. Lucien Febvre, "La sensibilité et l'histoire: comment reconstituer la vie affective d'autrefois?", Annales d'histoire sociale, 3 (1941), pp. 5-20;
12. trans. Peter Burke in A New Kind of History: From the Writings of Lucien Febvre (London, 1973), pp. 12-26.
13. Norbert Elias, Über den Prozess der Zivilisation. Soziogenetische und Psychogenetische Untersuchungen (Basle, 1939);
14. translated as The Civilizing Process (Oxford, 1994). For a combination of the histoire de mentalités with Elias's theory,
15. see Robert Muchembled, L'invention de l'homme moderne. Sensibilités, moeurs et comportements collectifs sous l'Ancien Régime (Paris, 1988).
16. Barbara H. Rosenwein, "Worrying about Emotions in History", American Historical Review, 107 (2002), pp. 821-845, 824-826;
17. Peter N. Stearns, "Social History Update: Sociology of Emotions", Journal of Social History, 22 (1989), pp. 592-599.
18. M.M. Bakhtin, Rabelais and his World (Bloomington, IN, 1984); original version in Russian, 1965.
19. Burke, Popular Culture, p. 188.
20. Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, Carnival in Romans (New York, 1979);
21. see also Burke, Popular Culture, p. 204;
22. M. Lane Brunner, "Carnivalesque Protest and the Humorless State", Text and Performance Quarterly, 25 (2005) pp. 136-155, 139.
23. Charles Tilly, The Contentious French (Cambridge, MA [etc.], 1986), pp. 32-33.
24. Anton Zijderveld, Reality in a Looking Glass: Rationality through an Analysis of Traditional Folly (London 1982), p. 207: allowing the jester to make fun of the ruler was a way to show the absolute power of the monarch.
25. Cf. the immunity position of the "joker" in various societies: Mary Douglas, "The Social Control of Cognition: Some Factors in Joke Perception", Man (New Series), 3 (1968), pp. 361-376, 372.
26. Christie Davies, Jokes and their Relation to Society (Berlin [etc.], 1998), p. 176;
27. Alexander Rose, "When Politics is a Laughing Matter", Policy Review, 59 (2001/2002), pp. 59-71.
28. Bakhtin, Rabelais, pp. 452-454.
29. Anton C. Zijderveld, "Jokes and Their Relation to Social Reality", Social Research, 35 (1968), pp. 186-311, 300-301, 306.
30. Rose, "When Politics is a Laughing Matter", p. 63.
31. Kuipers, Good Humor, pp. 234-240;
32. Janet Holmes and Meredith Marra, "Humour as a Discursive Boundary Marker in Social Interaction", in Anna Duszak (ed.), Us and Others: Social Identities Across Languages, Discourses and Cultures (Amsterdam [etc.], 2002), pp. 377-400;
33. Arthur Asa Berger and Aaron Wildavsky, "Who Laughs at What?", Culture and Society, 31 (1994), pp. 82-86.
34. Antonin J. Obrdlik, "Gallows Humor: A Sociological Phenomenon", American Journal of Sociology, 47 (1942), pp 709-716, 712.
35. Christie Davics, Ethnic Humor around the World: A Comparative Analysis (Bloomington, IN, 1990);
36. Anton C. Zijderveld, "Trend Report: The Sociology of Humour and Laughter", Current Sociology, 31:3 (1983), pp. 1-103, 51.
37. Both views quoted by Joseph Boskin, "The Complicity of Humor: The Life and Death of Sambo", in John Morreall (ed.), The Philosophy of Laughter and Humor (Albany, NY, 1987), pp. 250-264, 254.
38. See also Oscar Verkaaik, "Fun and Violence: Ethnocide and the Effervescence of Collective Aggression", Social Anthropology, 11 (2003), pp. 3-22.
39. Giselinde Kuipers, "Het eerste transnationale humorschandaal. De Mohammed-cartoons en de mondialisering van de humor", Sociologie, 2 (2006), pp. 461-466. For an overview of the variety in reactions on the Muhammad-cartoons, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jyllands- Posten_controversy (accessed 8 January 2007).
40. Murray S. Davis, What's So Funny? The Comic Conception of Culture and Society (Chicago, IL, 1993), p. 311; comedy's political implications are paradoxical - it makes radical and conservative statements at the same time.
41. Zijderveld, "Trend Report", p. 57. I thank Christie Davies for sharing his thoughts on this subject.
42. Davies, Jokes and their Relation to Society, p. 311.
43. See also Janet Holmes and Meredith Marra, "Over the Edge? Subversive Humour between Colleagues and Friends", Humor: International Journal of Humor Research, 15 (2002), pp. 65-87.
44. Suzana B. Rodrigues and David L. Collinson, "Having Fun? Humour as Resistance in Brazil", Organization Studies, 16 (1995), pp. 739-768, 751-752.
45. Phil Taylor and Peter Bain, '"Subterranean Worksick Blues': Humour as Subversion in Two Call Centres", Organization Studies, 24 (2003), pp. 1487-1509, 1499.
46. Christopher Hill, The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution (Harmondsworth, 1975), p. 282.
47. John C. Meyer, "Humor as a Double-Edged Sword: Four Functions of Humor in Communication", Communication Theory, 10 (2000), pp. 310-331, 324.
48. Horace, quoted by Francis Hutcheson, "Traditional Theories of Laughter and Humor", in Morreall, Philosophy of Laughter and Humor, pp. 26-40, 35.
49. Humour seems very much in line with the other "weapons of the weak" of gossip and minor sabotage; see James Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (New Haven, CT, 1985).
50. The term refers to Erving Goffman's Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience (New York, 1974).
51. On the concept of frame, see Hank Johnston, "Verification and Proof in Frame and Discourse Analysis", in Bert Klandermans and Suzanne Staggenborg (eds), Methods of Social Movement Research (Minneapolis, MN [etc.], 2002) pp. 62-91;
52. David A. Snow, E. Burke Rochford Jr, Steven K. Worden, and Robert D. Benford, "Frame Alignment Processes, Micromobilization, and Movement Participation", American Sociological Review, 51 (1986), pp. 461-481;
53. Robert D. Benford and David A. Snow, "Framing Processes and Social Movements: An Overview and Assessment", Annual Review of Sociology, 26 (2000), pp. 611-639, 614.
54. See, for a historical application of the concept: Michiel Baud and Rosanne Rutten, "Introduction", in idem (eds), "Popular Intellectuals and Social Movements: Framing Protest in Asia, Africa, and Latin America', Supplement 12, International Review of Social History (Cambridge, 2004), pp. 1-18.
55. William Gamson, "Constructing Social Protest", in Hank Johnston and Bert Klandermans (eds), Social Movements and Culture (Minneapolis, MN, 1995) pp. 85-106, 90ff.
56. James M. Jasper, "The Emotions of Protest: Affective and Reactive Emotions in and around Social Movements", Sociological Forum, 13 (1998), pp. 397-424, 412, referring to the study of Gusfield (1987).
57. On the concept "mobilization of resources", see Charles Tilly, From Mobilization to Revolution (Reading, MA, 1978).
58. This has undoubtedly been furthered by the "discursive turn" in the social sciences; see Roger V. Gould, "Historical Sociology and Collective Action", in Julia Adams, Elisabeth S. Clemens, and Ann Shola Orloff (eds), Remaking Modernity: Politics, History, and Sociology (Durham [etc.], 2005), pp. 286-299, 296 ff.
59. Charles Tilly, Popular Contention in Great Britain, 1718-1834 (Cambridge, MA [etc.], 1995). pp. 378-379.
60. Francesca Polletta and James M. Jasper, "Collective Identity and Social Movements", Annual Review of Sociology, 27 (2001), pp. 283-305, 285, 292.
61. Harry Hiller, "Humor and Hostility: A Neglected Aspect of Social Movement Analysis", Qualitative Sociology, 6 (1983), pp. 255-265, 262.
62. Verkaaik, "Fun and Violence", p. 14.
63. On the integrating power of humour, see Zijderveld, "Trend Report", p. 47.
64. Frank A. Salamone, "'Laughin' Louie: an Analysis of Louis Armstrong's Records and its Relationship to African-American Musical Humor", Humor, 15 (2002), pp. 47-63, 55.
65. Nancy Levi Arnez and Clara B. Anthony, "Contemporary Negro Humor as Social Satire", Phylon, 29 (1968), pp. 339-346, 341, quoting Gregory. He also ran for President of the United States in 1968. For some of Dick Gregory's most recent activities, see http://www.dickgregory. com/ (accessed 6 January 2007).
66. A strong stimulus for taking emotions seriously was exerted by feminists and those studying the womens' movement, as women were especially susceptible to the allegation by their opponents that they were acting on " emotional" (i.e. irrational) grounds; see Jeff Goodwin, James M. Jasper, and Francesca Polletta, "The Return of the Repressed: The Fall and Rise of Emotions in Social Movement Theory", Mobilization, 5 (2000), pp. 65-84, 74-75.
67. Ron Aminzade and Doug McAdam, "Emotions and Contentious Politics", in Ronald R. Aminzade et al., Silence and Voice in the Study of Contentious Politics (Cambridge, 2001), pp. 14-50, 23;
68. Goodwin, Jasper, and Polletta, "The Return of the Repressed", pp. 66-69;
69. Craig Calhoun, "Putting Emotions in their Place", in Goodwin, Jasper, and Polleta, Passionate Politics, pp. 45-57. 46.
70. Julia Adams, Elisabeth S. Clemens and Ann Shola Orloff, "Introduction: Social Theory, Modernity and the Three Waves of Historical Sociology", in idem, Remaking Modernity, pp. 1-72, 15ff.
71. Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups (Cambridge, MA, 1971).
72. Jasper, "The Emotions of Protest", p. 398.
73. Alberto Melucci, "The Process of Collective Identity", in Johnston and Klandermans, Social Movements and Culture, pp. 41-63, 45;
74. on grievances in social movements, see also Bert Klandermans, "The Formation and Mobilization of Consensus", in Bert Klandermans, Hanspeter Kriesi, and Sidney Tarrow (eds), From Structure to Action: Comparing Social Movement Research Across Cultures (Greenwich, CT, 1988), pp. 173-196, 179.
75. Jeff Goodwin, James M. Jasper, and Franceses Polletta, "Introduction: Why Emotions Matter", in idem, Passionate Politics, pp. 1-26, 11.
76. John Morreall, "Humor and Emotion", in idem, Philosophy of laughter and Humor, pp. 212-224.
77. Martin, Psychology of Humor, p. 273;
78. Lambert Deckers, "Influence of Mood on Humor", in Willibald Ruch (ed.), The Sense of Humor: Explorations of a Personality Characteristic (Berlin [etc.], 1998), pp. 309-328, 311, 325.
79. Martin, Psychology of Humor, p. 19.
80. Zijderveld, "Trend Report", p. 44;
81. William McNeill, Keeping Together in Time: Dance and Drill in Human History (Cambridge, MA [etc.], 1996).
82. Gibbs M. Smith, Labor Martyr: Joe Hill (New York, 1969), p. 35.
83. Sidney Tarrow, Power in Social Movement: Social Movements, Collective Action and Politics (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 81ff.;
84. Wayne te Brake, Shaping History: Ordinary People in European Politics, 1500-1700 (Berkeley, CA [etc.], 1998) p. 14; for a sociological account on cooperation and conflicts among elites in history,
85. see Richard Lachmann, Capitalists in Spite of Themselves: Elite Conflict and Economic Transformations in Early Modern Europe (Oxford [etc.], 2002).
86. S.N. Eisenstadt, "The Breakdown of Communist Regimes", in Vladimir Tismaneaunu (ed.), The Revolutions of 1989 (London, 1999), pp. 89-107.
87. Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (Cambridge, MA, 1989);
88. Simon A. Gunn, "The Public Sphere, Consumption and Modernity: New Perspectives on the History of the English Middle Class", in A. Kidd and D. Nicholls (eds), Gender, Civic Culture and Consumerism: Middle-Class Identity in Britain 1800-1950 (Manchester, 1999), pp. 12-29.
89. On the strength of self-deprecating humour: Zijderveld, "Trend Report", p. 51.
90. On comparable workplace cartoons, see Rodrigues and Collinson, "Having Fun?: Humour as Resistance in Brazil", p. 756.
91. Likewise, the prominent orthodox ideologists of the Protestants in the seventeenth-century Netherlands did not appreciate humour at all either: Rudolf M. Dekker, Humour in the Dutch Culture of the Golden Age (London, 2001), pp. 9-10.
92. See, for another study on work-place jokes and the strengthening of collective identity of the workers: Shankar Ramaswami, "Masculinity, Respect, and the Tragic: Themes of Proletarian Humor in Contemporary Industrial Delhi", in Rana P. Behal and Marcel van der Linden (eds), Coolies, Capital, and Colonialism: Studies in Indian Labour History, Supplement 14, International Review of Social History (Cambridge, 2006), pp. 203-228.
93. Thereby defying the general idea that feminists have no sense of humour; see also Nancy Walker, "Do Feminists Ever Laugh? Women's Humor and Women's Rights", International Journal of Women's Studies, 4 (1981), pp. 1-9.
94. See also Davies, Ethnic Humor around the World, p. 318.
95. Lane Brunner, "Carnivalesque Protest and the Humorless State", p. 147.
96. On the importance of media coverage for social movements, see Gamson, "Constructing", pp. 85ff. Of course, journalists also want to share the jokes they have heard with "their" public.
97. Quoted by Lane Brunner (referring to Kenney), "Carnivalesque Protest and the Humorless State", p. 145.
98. Obrdlik, "Gallows Humor", p. 715.
99. This bias towards the Westernized world is also present in most studies on social movements: see Bert Klandermans, Suzanne Staggenborg, and Sidney Tarrow, "Conclusion: Blending Methods and Building Theories in Social Movement Research", in Bert Klandermans and Suzanne Staggenborg (eds), Methods of Social Movement Research (Minneapolis, MN [etc.], 2002, pp. 314-350. 315.
100. George Orwell, "Funny but not Vulgar", Leader, 28 July 1945 - also available at http:// www.nonsenselit.org/Lear/essays/orwell_2.html (visited 8 January 2007).