Roundtable: It’s Funny ‘Cause It’s True. The Work that Humor Does in Narrative Accounts of Crime

Session Submission Type: Roundtable Session

Abstract/Description

Researchers on social harm and social control have noted how jokes and laughter often play a part in narratives about crime. This roundtable places humor center stage as a social and narrative practice.

Laughter, jokes, satire and clowning can be powerful tools to resist disempowering circumstances and mitigate the felt experiences of harm, with gallows humor as a well-known example. Joking about things one is not supposed to joke about can be a form of truth-telling, challenging stereotypes and revealing pervasive ideas often left unarticulated. But humor may also work to keep disadvantaged people in place, to silence and invalidate their experiences or perpetuate stereotypes and simplistic caricatures.

This roundtable revolves around contentious questions about humor in criminological research. In what ways and to what ends is humor used in stories about crime, victimization and punishment? When is joking employed as a mode or mechanism of social control, and how does it work to reveal and contest power relations? How can jokes and laughter create and strengthen connection and in-group cohesion in contexts of social harm and punishment? And when does humor legitimize and uphold unjust power relations, through reinforcing the marginalization of out-groups – those that the joke is on?

Sub Unit

• Area XIV. Roundtables

Chair

• Anja Emilie Kruse, University of Oslo, Norway

Discussants

• Shadd Maruna, Queen's University Belfast

• Danielle Arlanda Harris, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Griffith University

• Fergus McNeill, Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research, University of Glasgow