Laughable borders: On the humorous in migration studies
In her seminar Anja Franck will present her recent work on the role of humour in migration research, both as a methodological tool and as an important aspect of how migrants navigate increasingly absurd border regimes.
Humor is widely recognized as a fundamental aspect of the human experience, that also plays a vital role in the way marginalized groups comment on and mock power. Yet, in migration research the methodological and analytical value of the humorous has been almost entirely overlooked. Rather, migration studies has commonly centered its analysis around suffering and tragedy and, in the process, migrant trajectories have become depicted as endeavors largely devoid of laughter, humor, irony and play. In my article “Laughable borders” I suggests that this humorless representation of the migration process– and indeed of the migrant subject itself– has implications for the types of knowledge that we (re)produce around migrants’ experiences, subjectivities and struggles. In fact, I argue that our failure to recognize migrants as humorous individuals risks feeding into processes of exceptionalization and de-humanization through setting “the migrant” up as an obscure figure that lacks “essentially human” qualities.
Seminar can also be joined via Zoom