The ambivalent affordances of humour in capitalist organizations
VIEW FULL TEXT

Keywords

humour
capitalism
work and organizational leadership
positive psychology
Frankfurt School

How to Cite

Zekavat, M. (2023). The ambivalent affordances of humour in capitalist organizations. The European Journal of Humour Research, 11(1), 184–200. https://doi.org/10.7592/EJHR.2023.11.1.728

Abstract

Responding to concerns raised by Michael Billig (2018) regarding the functions of humour in capitalist organisations, this essay strives to convey how humour and satire can have liberating and empowering affordances for subjects in organisational contexts as they can potentially intervene in the negotiation and exercise of power through fostering negative dialectical thinking and estrangement. Revisiting the scepticism of Marcuse, Fromm, Horkheimer and Adorno toward humour, it strives to provide an initial theoretical framework to accommodate a more nuanced understanding of the functions of humour in power structures by locating it within the contingencies acknowledged by Frankfurt School critical theorists. Although humour can be co-opted to serve power and consolidate the status quo, it can also serve as a potential resistance strategy in capitalist societies and organisations.

https://doi.org/10.7592/EJHR.2023.11.1.728
VIEW FULL TEXT

References

Althusser, L. (1971). Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays. Trans. Ben Brewster. Monthly Review Press.

Auden, W. H. (2006). ‘The unknown citizen’, in Greenblatt, S., (general ed.), Norton Anthology of English Literature, 8th edition, vol. 2, W. W. Norton & Company, pp. 2431–2432.

Bakhtin, M. M. (1984). Rabelais and His World. Indiana University Press.

Bayless, M. (2014). ‘Carnivalesque’, in Attardo, S. (ed.), Encyclopaedia of Humour Studies, Los Angeles: Sage, pp. 109–112.

Bergson, H. (1917). Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Trans. Cloudesley Brereton and Fred Rothwell. New York: Macmillan.

Billig, M. (2005). Laughter and Ridicule: Towards a Social Critique of Humour. London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi: Sage Publications.

Billig, M. (2018). ‘Positive psychology: humour and the virtues of negative thinking’, in Maon, F., Lindgreen, A., Vanhamme, J., Angell, R. J. & Memery, J. (eds.), Not All Claps and Cheers: Humour in Business and Society Relationships, London: Routledge, pp. 3‒13.

Bos, D. & Hart, M. (2008). Humour and Social Protest. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Brecht, B. (2014). Brecht on Theatre. Marc Silberman, Steve Giles, Tom Kuhn (eds.). Trans. Steve Giles. Bloomsbury Publishing.

Chaplin, C. S. (1936). Modern Times.

Collinson, D. (1994). ‘Strategies of resistance: power, knowledge and subjectivity in the workplace’, in Jermier, J. M., Knights, D. & Nord, W. R. (eds.), Resistance and Power in Organisations, London: Routledge, pp. 25–68.

Collinson, D. L. (2002). ‘Managing humour’. Journal of Management Studies 39 (3), pp.

–288.

Critchley, S. (2006). ‘Humour as practically enacted theory, or, why critics should tell more jokes’, in Westwood, R. & Rohdes, C. (eds.), Humour, Work and Organisation, London: Routledge, pp. 17‒32.

Dentith, S. (1996). Bakhtinian Thought: An Introductory Reader. London: Routledge.

Eagleton, T. (2019). Humour. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.

Edwards, P., Collinson, D. & Rocca, D. (1995). ‘Workplace resistance in Western

Europe: a preliminary overview and a research agenda’. European Journal of

Industrial Relations 1 (3), pp. 283–316.

Fleming, P., & Sewell, G. (2002). ‘Looking for the good soldier, Švejk: alternative modalities of resistance in the contemporary workplace’. Sociology 36 (4), pp. 857–873.

Fromm, E. (1956). The Art of Loving. New York: Harper & Row.

Gibson, J. M. (2019). An Introduction to the Psychology of Humour. London: Routledge.

Hietalahti, J. (2017). ‘Socially critical humour: discussing humour with Erich Fromm and Theodor W. Adorno’. Idéias 8 (1), pp. 87-108. https://doi.org/10.20396/ideias.v8i1.8649776.

Higgie, R. (2014). ‘Kynical dogs and cynical masters: contemporary satire, politics and truth-telling’. Humour: International Journal of Humour Research 27 (2), pp. 183‒201. https://doi.org/10.1515/humour-2014-0016.

Higgie, R. (2017). ‘Under the guise of humour and critique: the political co-option of popular contemporary satire’, in Milner Davis, J. (ed.), Satire and Politics. Palgrave Studies in Comedy, London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 73–102.

Higgie, R. L. (2013). Speaking Truth: The Play of Politics and Australian Satire. Ph.D. Thesis. Curtin University.

Holm, N. (2017). Humour as Politics. The Political Aesthetics of Contemporary Comedy. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

Holmes, J. (2000). ‘Politeness, power and provocation: how humour functions in the workplace’. Discourse Studies 2 (2), pp. 159–185. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461445600002002002

Horkheimer, M., & Adorno, T. W. (1979). Dialectic of Enlightenment. John Cumming (Trans.). London, New York: Verso.

Horkheimer, M., & Adorno, T. W. (1997). ‘The culture industry: Enlightenment as mass deception,’ in Dialectic of Enlightenment, John Cumming (Trans.). London, New York: Verso. pp. 120-167.

Horkheimer, M. & Adorno, T. W. (2006). ‘The culture industry: Enlightenment as mass deception’, in Durham, M. G., & Kellner, D. M. (eds.), Media and Cultural Studies: Keyworks, Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 41–72.

Howe, L. (2013). ‘Charlie Chaplin in the age of mechanical reproduction: reflexive ambiguity in Modern Times’. College Literature 40 (1), pp. 45–65. https://doi.org/10.1353/lit.2013.0007.

Kramer, C. (2020). ‘Subversive humour as art and the art of subversive humour’. The Philosophy of Humour Yearbook 1 (1), pp. 153–180. https://doi.org/10.1515/phhumyb-2020-0012

Loacker, B., & Peters, L. (2015). ‘“Come on, get happy!”: Exploring absurdity and sites of alternate ordering in Twin Peaks’. Ephemera: Theory and Politics in Organisation 15 (3), pp. 621–649.

Marcuse, H. (1978). ‘A note on dialectic’, in A. Arato and E. Gebhardt (eds.), The Essential Frankfurt School Reader, New York: Continuum, pp. 444-451.

Marcuse, H. (2014). ‘A note on dialectic’, in Groff, R. (ed.), Subject and Object: Frankfurt School Writings on Epistemology, Ontology, and Method, New York: Bloomsbury Academic, pp. 91–98. http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781501302244.ch-004

Marra, M. (2008). ‘Humour in workplace meetings challenging hierarchies’, in Westwood, R. & Rhodes, C. (eds.), Humour, Work and Organisation. London: Routledge.

McGraw, A. P., Williams, L. E. & Warren, C. (2014). ‘Psychological distance’, in Attardo, S. (ed.), Encyclopedia of Humour Studies, Los Angeles: Sage, pp. 602–603.

Morreall, J. (2009). Comic Relief: A Comprehensive Philosophy of Humour. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

“Union Busting.” (2021). Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO). https://youtu.be/Gk8dUXRpoy8

Westwood, R. & Johnston, A. (2013). ‘Humour in organisation: from function to resistance’. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 26 (2), pp. 219–247. https://doi.org/10.1515/humour-2013-0024.

Westwood, R. (2004). ‘Comic relief: subversion and catharsis in organizational comedic theatre’. Organisation Studies 25 (5), pp. 775–795. https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840604042414.

Westwood, R. & Johnston, A. (2012). ‘Reclaiming authentic selves: control, resistive humour and identity work in the office’. Organisation 19 (6), pp. 787–808. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350508411422583.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Copyright (c) 2022 The European Journal of Humour Research

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.