TY - JOUR
T1 - Mockery amid shooting
T2 - Laughter as an expression of expertise at a public clinic in Greater Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
AU - Silva Rocha Lima, Pedro
PY - 2024/6/1
Y1 - 2024/6/1
N2 - Laughter is one of the “weapons of the weak,” a means of degrading those in a position of power. Seeing laughter as such, however, only offers a view into what the performance does to its target, by belittling it, without saying much about what it does to the performer within a given power relation. This article investigates the potential of mockery and laughter to become expressions of expertise when they establish the performer as a knowing subject in relation to their target. Based on fieldwork conducted at a public clinic in Duque de Caxias, Brazil, this article analyzes how locally resident staff, through their extended work and dwelling in a neighborhood where shootings are frequent, mocked their superiors who did not know how to appropriately assess and react to the sound of shooting. By establishing the performer as the knowing subject in relation to those being mocked, laughter in this setting had the potential to unsettle classed hierarchies of knowledge.
AB - Laughter is one of the “weapons of the weak,” a means of degrading those in a position of power. Seeing laughter as such, however, only offers a view into what the performance does to its target, by belittling it, without saying much about what it does to the performer within a given power relation. This article investigates the potential of mockery and laughter to become expressions of expertise when they establish the performer as a knowing subject in relation to their target. Based on fieldwork conducted at a public clinic in Duque de Caxias, Brazil, this article analyzes how locally resident staff, through their extended work and dwelling in a neighborhood where shootings are frequent, mocked their superiors who did not know how to appropriately assess and react to the sound of shooting. By establishing the performer as the knowing subject in relation to those being mocked, laughter in this setting had the potential to unsettle classed hierarchies of knowledge.
KW - armed violence
KW - Brazil
KW - expertise
KW - laughter
KW - mockery
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85186469316&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/e56c0098-a13e-37a5-b284-3886206f684a/
U2 - 10.1111/aman.13967
DO - 10.1111/aman.13967
M3 - Article
SN - 0002-7294
VL - 126
SP - 216
EP - 226
JO - American Anthropologist
JF - American Anthropologist
IS - 2
ER -