What, when & where
Humour and Conflict in the Global South
33rd Annual Conference of the International Society for Humor Studies
July 3-7, 2023, University of Boston, USA
In the Global South, the relationship between humour and conflict is also reiterated and interrogated due to political polarisation and instability, culture wars, and rampant identity politics. Yet, these phenomena are intersected by historical, social, and political factors which are distinct from those mapped and discussed in the literature on the Global North. Divisions along the lines of class, race, caste, gender, sexuality, and religion continue to inform public discourse, economics, and politics of the South. As a tool, humour can be used to douse or exacerbate conflict. It can be a vehicle for education, misinformation, and sometimes even disinformation. It can be used to oppress, oppose, resist or just survive. In a context where politically divisive statements serve as punchlines for those in positions of power while humorists face jarring repercussions for their performances, it seems urgent to question and understand the bellicose potential of humour in the social and political contexts of historically marginalised regions of the world.
These regions are brought together here not because we understand them as a monolith, but because, even though they are a complex collection of peoples and nations across different continents, they share common historical, social, and political patterns of underrepresentation, exploitation, and marginalisation. These issues have been addressed by an emerging production of humour scholarship developed from and/or about the Global South (see Mpofu, 2021, Perera & Pathak, 2022 and Trindade 2020). However, this production is currently dispersed, as it has not yet been articulated in a common research framework tailored around Global South contexts.
This panel aims to bring together researchers who are developing theoretical or empirical approaches to attend to the contemporary relationships between humour and conflict in the Global South. The panel will function as a privileged space to discuss the specificities of humour studies undertaken in peripheral countries, identify key research gaps, and propose pathways for further study. We invite scholars who use conflict (directly or indirectly) as an axis to understand humour in the Global South to present findings from ongoing/recently finished research projects.
Deadline & how to apply
Please submit a 250-word abstract along with a brief bio by 24 Feb 2023 to:
diego.hoefel@ufc.br, joao.
Notification of acceptance into panel proposal: 01 March 2023
Other info, Links & conditions
Organizers: Diego Hoefel (UFC/Brazil), João Paulo Capelotti (UFPR/Brazil), Rujuta Date (SSLA/India)
ISHS 2023 Conference: https://combeyond.
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Photo by Matthieu Bühler on Unsplash