Ethnic Humor Research Articles

‘I Need the White Pill!’ – A Creative Exploration of How Minority Flemish Youth Employ Ethnic Humour for Identity Construction

‘I Need the White Pill!’ – A Creative Exploration of How Minority Flemish Youth Employ Ethnic Humour for Identity Construction

Cultural violence in Indonesian ethnic humor: A critical discourse analysis

This study proposes to explain that Indonesian ethnic humor show cultural violence on the target group, in addition, to establishing an interethnic dialogue. Cultural violence is defined as the entire cultural aspect that can be used to legitimize violence, whether direct or structural. Forms of cultural violence can include religion, ideology, language, empirical sciences, formal science, and cosmology. The problems questioned are (1) how cultural violence is depicted in the language structure of Indonesian ethnic humor and (2) how are the forms of cultural violence in the discourse of Indonesian ethnic humor. Data on ethnic humor were from books, magazines, websites, and social media. All were analyzed using critical discourse analysis. The results show that the potential for cultural violence in ethnic humor can be traced by its content and context. The content relates to the expressed substance and language, while context is under users' social and historical formation. Ethnic humor in Indonesia targets ethnic minorities such as Chinese and Madurese. When it comes to racist circumstances, ethnic humor can normalize structural discrimination and violence against the referred ethnicities. Cultural violence includes stigmatization, normalization of discriminatory policies, and social exclusion. This finding suggests that nonserious discourse, such as humor, has a severe social impact, therefore it must be used wisely.Budaya kekerasan dalam humor etnis Indonesia: Analisis wacana kritisPenelitian ini bertujuan untuk menjelaskan bahwa humor etnis Indonesia menunjukkan kekerasan budaya pada kelompok sasaran, selain itu, untuk membangun dialog antar-etnis. Kekerasan budaya didefinisikan sebagai seluruh aspek budaya yang dapat digunakan untuk melegitimasi kekerasan, baik langsung maupun struktural. Bentuk kekerasan budaya dapat mencakup agama, ideologi, bahasa, ilmu pengetahuan empiris, ilmu pengetahuan formal, dan kosmologi. Pertanyaan yang diajukan adalah (1) bagaimana kekerasan budaya digambarkan dalam struktur bahasa humor etnis Indonesia dan (2) bagaimana bentuk kekerasan budaya dalam wacana humor etnis Indonesia. Data tentang humor etnis berasal dari buku, majalah, situs web, dan media sosial. Semua dianalisis menggunakan analisis wacana kritis. Hasilnya menunjukkan bahwa potensi kekerasan budaya dalam humor etnis dapat dilacak melalui konten dan konteksnya. Konten terkait dengan substansi dan bahasa yang diekspresikan, sedangkan konteks berada di bawah pembentukan sosial dan sejarah pengguna. Humor etnis di Indonesia menargetkan minoritas etnis seperti Tionghoa dan Madura. Dalam situasi yang rasis, humor etnis dapat memperkuat diskriminasi struktural dan kekerasan terhadap etnis yang disebutkan. Kekerasan budaya mencakup penstigmaan, normalisasi kebijakan diskriminatif, dan eksklusi sosial. Temuan ini menunjukkan bahwa wacana yang tidak serius, seperti humor, memiliki dampak sosial yang serius, oleh karena itu harus digunakan dengan bijak.

Depiction of Ethnic Targets and Scripts in Jokes from Uladzimir Sysou’s Archive

The article uses Uladzimir Sysou’s archival collection of jokes to study the corpus of Belarusian ethnic humour and delineate its main features. The analysis reveals the most popular targets among the ethnic jokes in Sysou’s collection which are Auciukoucy (the inhabitants of Malyja Auciuki and Vialikiya Auciuki villages in southern Belarus), Jews and Armenians, as well as most popular ethnic scripts of these jokes which are stupidity, canniness, self-deprecation and physical or sexual violence. The popularity and novelty of Auciukoucy as an ethnic humour target is explained within the context of the spatial and temporal circumstances of Sysou’s fieldwork. The jokes are interpreted within Christie Davies’s theory of ethnic humour, and the phenomenon of application of both stupidity and canniness scripts to a single ethnic target is discussed.

Identity politics and ethnic humour in contemporary Jordan

Following political turbulence and instability in the Middle East, Jordan has become a home for a large number of Palestinians, Iraqis, and Syrians, and now includes a significant number of Egyptians in its workforce. This growing diversity in the population has impacted the country not only socially and economically but quite noticeably in terms of identity politics and ethnic humour (how do indigenous people perceive the other(s) and how do others perceive the indigenous people?). This is explained through the rising tensions between Jordanians and Jordanians of Palestinian origin in relation to the formation of ethnic humour that is based on the idea of urban and rural division in Jordanian society. The discussion in this article argues that the people of Transjordanian towns, such as As-Salt, At-Tafilah, and As-Sarih, have ‘unexpectedly’ become the target of many ethnic jokes by the urbanites in Amman and elsewhere, who now make up the majority of Jordanians of Palestinian origin. The people of these Transjordanian small towns and villages have been the target of Jordanian ethnic humour because of their backwardness, lack of discretion, and stupidity, compared to the cleverness, modernity, and high culture of the Jordanian urbanites and their cultural superiority. However, since the 2011 Arab Spring, the people of these Transjordanian towns have developed a counter-superiority tendency to laugh at the powerful in urban centres and make fun of the government and its institutionalised discourse about reform and progress.

Ethnic humour in cartoons

Abstract Cartoons are designed as a response to a social event and aim to create a humorous effect in the audience through their multimodal discourse. The interpretation requires contextual and cultural information which has to be shared by the cartoonist and the audience. Our research focuses on the dialogue of humorous cartoons between the West and the East. From a dialogic perspective, the action, i.e., the cartoons published in the French and Swiss media, generates a reaction in the Romanian media. We discuss the transfer of national stereotypes at a European level and show that, although the cartoons target a particular out-group, they ricochet to another group. Thus, new boundaries are set up and humour functions as a divisive social activity.

Wogs as work: humour as ethnic entrepreneurship and convivial labour

ABSTRACT In post-war Australia, the word ‘wog’ was used to describe the southern Europeans who dominated the mass migration schemes, particularly Italians and Greeks. The evolution of ‘wog’ from slur to celebration peaked in the 1990s, led by second-generation migrant comedians. This paper sets out the history of this evolution and the societal context in which ‘wog’ humour was invented in a uniquely ‘Australian’ way. Many of the cultural texts that make up the wog phenomenon have centred on themes of work and labour – from the original Wogs Out of Work to Pizza and Housos. This paper extends its consideration of labour in these works beyond themes in the content to argue that the act of ethnic humour is a form of convivial labour and ethnic entrepreneurship.

Translating humour in children’s theatre for (unintended) diasporic audiences

This article delves into children’s literature, more specifically, children’s theatre containing humour, and its double process of translation and/or adaptation, both “page to stage” and “stage to stage”, when a different language is involved, and the play is to be performed for an audience belonging to the target culture and an unintended diasporic one. The research perspective is descriptive (of the translational process) and comparative (of the source and target products). On the one hand, it analyses the cognitive and social mechanisms which create humour of different types (literary-stylistic, visual-auditive, and situational/of expectations) and those which allow the existence of ethnic humour. On the other hand, it tackles the translators’ decision-making process and the translation/adaptation strategies reflected by the final product. The material used for this research comprises the literary work in original, the script in the source language, the script in the target language, the recordings of the Romanian performance and the performance in Spanish by the Theatre “Anton Pann” (Romania). The author of this article coordinated the team of translators whose hybridity lies in their condition of first and second generation of Romanian residents in Spain. The results of this insight bring into light the debate on ethnic humour legitimacy and, at the same time, draw scholarly attention to the role played by translators in constructing and perpetuating images of cultures/literatures.

‘Just kidding?’ – an exploratory audience study into the ways Flemish youth with a minoritized ethnic identity make sense of ethnic humor and the politics of offense

Abstract Recently, ethnic humor (targeting ethnoreligious identities) is increasingly questioned in European and Western countries, sparking controversy on online and traditional media platforms. Absent from the mediated and academic debate are the opinions from targeted subjects of the joke. This qualitative audience study aims to add to critical humor scholarship by providing insight into how targeted groups make sense of disputes of offense. We interviewed 35 participants (ages 15–24) with a minoritized ethnic identity (mostly a Moroccan or Turkish diasporic background) and religious identity (all identified as Muslim) on how they negotiate offensive (ethnic) humor. Moreover, we asked participants to reflect on the politics of offense (i.e. the power relations underlying the process of publicly claiming offense) and the role media play in the discussion of offended feelings in relation to (ethnic) humor. A thematic analysis of three focus groups indicates how participants’ negotiations were always influenced by contextual factors and tied to their identities, both on a sociopolitical and personal level. Further, participants were highly conscious about their minoritized position in debates on offensive ethnic humor and how this relates to societal power inequalities. As such, they recognized how the politics of offense regarding ethnic humor highlight boundaries between social groups.

Ethnic humour as a representation of the linguistic worldview (on the example of a German-language joke)

Ethnic humour as a representation of the linguistic worldview (on the example of a German-language joke)

THE DIMENSIONS OF REALITY USE OF HUMOR IN THE BUGINESE ETHNIC

The problem of this research originates by observing the prevalence of ethnic Buginese humor on various occasions. This fact is different with the "hard" stereotype attached to the Bugis ethnicity. This research aims to 1) describe the dimensions of the usefulness of humor in based on the local values and culture of the Buginese community, and 2) to analyze the dimensions of the usefulness of humor for the Buginese ethnic in Lise Village, Panca Lautang District, Sidrap Regency. The data were taken in Ada tongeng (lecco-lecco ada) from the Lise Buginese community. Furthermore, data analysis was carried out using content and context analysis techniques while still considering semantic and pragmatic aspects to explore the meaning of linguistic elements and problems of differences in responses or logic games between participants. The results of the data analysis show that based on the context of the situation, Bugis ethnic humor suggests the dimensions of usefulness as follows; (1) Entertainment, (2) Education, (3) Self-defense, (4) Self-introspection, (5) Removing formality, (6) Facilitating social relations, (7) Demonstrating eloquence, (8) Persuading, (9) Beat the interlocutor.

Ethnic and regional stereotypes in the TV series “Konak kod Hilmije”

Ethnic and regional stereotypes as simplified views of a people within a certain community based on their ethnic and regional affiliation are observed in this paper through the TV series “Konak kod Hilmije” (konak, local small private hotel with a restaurant), broadcast in 2018 and 2019 in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, as well as in the diaspora countries of the former Yugoslavia. Ethnic and regional stereotypes were found during the analysis of the series’ rhetoric and discourse. The series is set in Sarajevo during World War II, more precisely in a restaurant with an overnight stay run by a local Sarajevo host. A handful of different characters moving through the tavern and konak has produced ethnic and regional stereotypes, in addition to their personal interests and allegedly reduced national tensions. These stereotypes run through the series as an important part of ethnic humor, whose content is primarily on an ethnic/national basis, but also contain geographical/regional or social foundations. Humor at the expense of various social groups, religious and other greetings, cultural background of the inhabitants of the old part of Sarajevo, retraditionalization in the domain of religion and language, indicates that the TV series “Konak kod Hilmije” is critical of these phenomena and processes in public discourse, mostly towards the simplified view of ethnic/regional communities in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Ethnic Jokes: Mocking the Working Irish Woman: Winning Essay, Journal of Victorian Culture Graduate Essay Prize 2021

Abstract The figure of the laughably ignorant Irish maid was one of the most recognizable Irish stereotypes in Anglo-American print culture over the late nineteenth century. Jokes about ‘Bridget’ and ‘Biddy’ crossed the Atlantic in both directions, contributing to a transnational repository of comic Irish tropes. While the cultural representation of Irish immigrants was often shaped by regional concerns, Irish servant gags were comparable, and at times identical, across locations – an indication of just how interlinked domestic sensibilities were in England and the United States. Ethnic humour of this kind partly reflected the prevalence of anti-Irish sentiment, echoing older anti-Irish caricatures. The class and racial biases revealed by transatlantic depictions of the Irish is stressed in the existing literature on Irish diaspora history, and certainly such biases help to explain many of the jokes told about servants. This essay moves beyond these perspectives, however, in arguing that comic representations of domestic service also spoke to the anxiety of the middle and upper classes reliant on external help to maintain household order, an intricate endeavour in the context of elaborate Victorian domestic protocols. The huge volume of social commentary devoted to the so-called servant question over these years was a marker of the discomfort felt by employers about managing domestic labour, and joking about the competence of maids and cooks was one means of alleviating some of the tensions prompted by servant-keeping.

Lubricating culture awareness and critical thinking through humour

There is an ample evidence supporting the benefits of instructional humour, among which increased attention and interest, information retention and learning speed, more productive learning environment, a more positive image of the instructor, more efficient acquisition of linguistic and cultural competencies, an increased conversational involvement, enhanced cultural awareness and more stimulated critical thinking. However, most of the research findings rely on what is termed appropriate humor such as puns, jokes, anecdotes and alike, while potentially offensive humour that relates to sexual, ethnic, religious, political identity is generally labeled inappropriate and advised to be avoided in the classroom environment. It is in this particular context that this study seeks to test the potential of such humour, sexual and ethnic in particular, to act as a tool of increasing cultural awareness and stimulate critical thinking among university students. To do so, the study relies on an experimental class design combining few in-class and extracurricular activities created by using sexual and ethnic humour samples.

“So What If I Am Laz?” Irony, Mockery and Humor in Ethnic Integration and Insubordination

This study argues that the ethnic Laz in Turkey resort to irony, humor and mockery to cope with and negotiate the stereotypes, ethnic humor and mockery they encounter in their interactions with outsiders. The trope of irony, humor and mockery have enabled the Laz to navigate the national and regional hierarchies and reproduce their symbolic boundaries regardless of the common and ardent appropriation of Turkishness. In so doing, the Laz can more subtly challenge the official ideology of uniformity. While the public use of Lazuri is still considered a threat to the negotiated boundaries of Lazness, new instruments present creative displays of their ethnic capital which do not contradict present day principles of Turkish nationalism, and offer a legitimate sharing of intimacy without embarrassment. The Laz, like other non-Turkish Muslim peoples of the Black Sea region, abandoned their politically threatening ethnic distinctions, appropriated the capital of Turkishness through their performances, and coped with mockery and stigma by ironizing differences and negotiating, trivializing or selectively appropriating the stereotypes imposed upon them. Ironically, they have “out-performed” ethnic Turks in certain ways, in their search for acceptance as Turks, achieving upward mobility and avoiding forms of stigmatization.

Invitational Rhetoric and Humor: Making Audience Laugh, Inviting Them to Think

Humor is a resource for discourse dealing with the taboo. Through the use of humor, comedians can practice uninhibited use of free public speech because audiences expect to laugh in these situations. This inherent expectation creates an environment where expression, objective opinions, and otherwise offensive ideas can be shared in a public space without fear of persecution or repercussion. As such, humor message creators are free to push social boundaries to create a discourse necessary to address what would be offensive. This freedom is important to this work because of how comedians approach the use of stereotypical ethnic humor. The culmination of audience expectation and openness creates an environment readily available for analysis of ethnic humor messages by researchers. Using the lens of Invitational Rhetoric, we uncover rhetorical messages embedded in the humor that work to challenge negative stereotypes about identity.

MOCKING NATION BUILDING AND IDENTITY. AN ANALYSIS OF CARICATURES IN HUNGARIAN, ROMANIAN, SERBIAN, AND SLOVAK SATIRICAL PERIODICALS IN THE MID TO LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY

This paper aims to present a comparative analysis of caricatures published in Hungarian (Üstökös, Borsszem Jankó), Serbian (Bič, Vrač pogađač), Romanian (Gur’a Satului), and Slovak (Černokňažník) satirical press in Hungary in the second half of the nineteenth century. The depth of the connection between identity, nation building, and humour will be demonstrated. Theories of nationalism often emphasise the primacy of the role of the press and of print media in nation building processes. To investigate this, humorous printed sources have been selected. The comparison utilises and complements Anthony D. Smith’s definition of the ethnic core and reflects on Christie Davies’ theory of ethnic humour. Tethered by these concepts, the analysis of the caricatures investigates the following aspects: names for the Self and the Other, elements of culture and tradition (languages, habits, religions, supposed characteristics, clothing and bodily features), symbols of the Self and the Other, historical memories and myths of the common ancestry of the Self and the Other, and the definitions of “our” vs. “their” territory and homeland. This analysis reveals that the stereotypes observed in satirical magazines and the images of the Other and of the Self depicted through the use of humorous or ironic techniques can be effectively distinguished and connected to the nation building process and to the process of shaping “enemies”.

Multi-ethnic jokes in the Russian language

The aim of this paper is to study variations and continuities in the targets of multi-ethnic jokes in the Russian language through time in three consecutive periods: Soviet era, post-socialist years and the present time. Multiethnic jokes are a subtype of ethnic canned jokes that feature two or more ethnonyms in one text, three being the most usual number of nationalities featured in the text and having, therefore, a tripartite structure. The different nationalities are placed in a special situation that usually entails some kind of competition between them. Our specific goals in this article are: 1) to analyse the position of the nationalities mentioned in the tripartite textual structure of the joke and their function within the text of the joke and to study structural variations through time; 2) to determine the ethnic scripts that are frequently ascribed to these targets and their changes from Soviet to present times; 3) to identify the nationalities that appear in multi-ethnic jokes in Russian and to detect changes in this cast of characters, if any, through the three chronological periods previously stated. The analysis of a corpus of 359 multi-ethnic jokes in the Russian language reveals that multi-ethnic jokes in Russian undergo few changes through times. Although they feature different nationalities in one text, multi-ethnic jokes in the Russian language are an example of reflexive ethnic humour, since they target Russians themselves.

“How do Filipinos clear deyer nose?”: Humor, Race, and Cultural Adaptation in Plantation-era Hawai‘i

Through sociopolitical history and ethnography, this research examines the influence of Hawai‘i’s historical plantation-based racial-hierarchy on the current social mobility of Filipino migrants and their subsequent cultural adaptations. The sociopolitical history centers on the Filipino experience with systematic oppression under the supremacy of plantation owners between the early- to mid-1900s, the contemporary socioeconomic position of Filipinos, and the formation of the Local identity. Results of the ethnography identified adaptations in areas of cultural assimilation, closed ethnic communities, and Local-Ethnic-Humor (LEH). Modern perpetuations of the racial hierarchy are found to be interconnected, and many simultaneously function as cultural adaptions, which include access to education, seclusion of ethnic communities, cultural assimilation and heritage loss, the reconstruction of ethnic stereotypes in Local ethnic humor, and diasporic immigration. Faculty Advisors: Patricia Fifita, Eirik Saethre Faculty Sponsor: Patricia Fifita, Eirik Saethre

Uncle Kimo Doesn't Get it: Reinforcing Racial Apathy with Racist Humor

As one of the most racially diverse U.S. states, Hawai'i is a reputed multicultural paradise. Its residents (locals) thus freely engage in racist jokes and stereotypes with one another as an example of their plurality compared to “racist” continental Americans. While previous studies have examined how racist comedy discursively naturalizes discrimination, I argue that these jokes are also connected to racialized emotions that uphold the islands’ unequal social structure. Using 44 interviews with locals who grew up in Hawai'i, I illustrate how racist jokes promote locals’ apathy toward the islands’ racial issues. I first describe how interviewees developed identity boundaries between “multicultural locals” and “racist mainlanders.” Then, I examine how these identity boundaries are tied to emotional scripts prompting respondents to ignore racism in Hawai'i. While many respondents uncritically engaged in racist comedy, a significant number of participants felt marginalized by racist humor. I use their experiences to show how locals must trade their “emotional labor,” laughing along with their peers, in order to maintain their local identities. I conclude by showing how racial apathy is reaffirmed as the affective consequences of racist jokes were trivialized and locals taught to roll with the punch(lines) of ethnic humor.

Dari Kolektor Besi Tua Hingga Sosok Religius: Stereotip Orang Madura Melalui Humor

This research aims to describe the stereotype of Madurese through humor. Humor and stereotyping are two inseparable concepts, especially ethnic humor. Madurese humors are discourses that are not neutral; there are interests and intentions behind every discourse of humor that is set. Ethnic humor is formed by exploring the weaknesses of other ethic groups especially related to the character of the ethnic. This is a form of speaker superiority about the ethnic. This study uses a social paradigm, qualitative approach, and interviewing and observing data collection methods. Source of the data comes from documents and informants. Data were analyzed by applying critical discourse analysis of van Dijk. This theory divides a discourse into three part: text, social cognition and context. The results showed at least seven of Madurese stereotypes through humor. Of the seven, it is divided into two categories, which are based on the job: scrap metal collectors, female herbalist, religious man, and satay seller; and based on the characters, namely: dumbness, cleverness, and rudeness. This critical research proves the stereotype through humor is an attempt to perpetuate the culturally alienated position of Madurese race.