Ethnicity and humour in the workplace

Virgins, Terrorists, and Ten Children: Immigrants' Humorous Play with Ethnic Stereotypes in Bonding with Danes in the Workplace

“…Acceptance of a person's joking is an indication that he or she is part of the social group (Apte :54). Furthermore, appreciation and enjoyment of humor generally require shared cultural values and assumptions, because different cultural backgrounds and beliefs influence what is perceived as amusing (Holmes and de Bres :496). A supportive response to humorous remarks through laughter, smiling, or vocal agreement indicates consensus among the actors, whereas a lack of response may, for example, imply disagreement (Fine :89).…”

“…Because humor was an analytical theme that emerged during the fieldwork, I had not formulated any systematically or strategically methodological plans before the work began as to how to study spontaneous humor in social interaction, although there does exist a literature on ethnographic approaches to spontaneous workplace humor among colleagues (e.g., Hatch and Ehrlich ; Holmes ; Lynch ; Pogrebin and Poole ; Roy ). Because spontaneous humor is extremely difficult to study as it is ambiguous, often momentary, and highly contextual (Plester :7), it is understandable why other researchers studying spontaneous (ethnic) humor in the workplace have used audio and/or video recordings (e.g., Holmes ; Holmes and de Bres ; Marra and Holmes ; Rogerson‐Revell ; Vine et al ). However, I agree with scholars in the field of spontaneous workplace humor (e.g., Lynch :139–140; Plester :161) that ethnographers must be present and fully embedded and affected by the processes of the group studied when investigating humor.…”

“…Humor is a pervasive aspect of working life (Apte ; Lynch ; Plester ); several studies have emphasized humor as the binding ingredient of social relations at work and described how humor can serve to facilitate relationship initiation and construct and maintain good collegial relations (e.g., Holmes ; Lynch ; Plester ). Yet, in line with the conflict approach to ethnic humor, studies describing how co‐workers of different ethnic backgrounds use humor in the workplace tend to emphasize the “darker side” of humor, showing how humor is used for boundary marking (Holmes and de Bres ; Rogerson‐Revell ; Vine et al ), drawing and reinforcing clear‐cut ethnic boundaries between groups. Selberg's (:296–298) analysis of a Swedish woman's humor targeting an immigrant co‐worker obviously ignores the woman's own interpretation of her relationship with the immigrant co‐worker, a good one in which they can joke using crude humorous remarks referring to ethnicity.…”

“…Drawing on fieldwork at The Food Factory (TFF), a multi‐ethnic workplace in an industrial kitchen in Denmark, I explore the self‐directed ethnic humor of first‐generation immigrants (predominantly with Muslim backgrounds) in interethnic collegial relationships with native Danes as the humor spontaneously develops and plays out in everyday work settings. Although there exists, in addition to the ethnic humor research, a considerable body of research on spontaneous workplace humor among colleagues based on ethnographic studies (e.g., Hatch and Ehrlich ; Holmes ; Lynch ; Pogrebin and Poole ; Roy ), very few researchers have shown interest in the intersection of these research fields and examined how co‐workers with different ethnic backgrounds use humor in the workplace (Holmes and de Bres ; Marra and Holmes ; Plester and Sayers ; Rogerson‐Revell ; Selberg ; Vine et al ).…”

“…Still, Selberg does not hesitate to conclude that it is “really” racism that is going on. Because ethnicity is a recurring theme in these studies, it is furthermore remarkable that almost none of these studies (Holmes and de Bres ; Marra and Holmes ; Rogerson‐Revell ; Selberg ; Vine et al ) thoroughly situate their analysis within ethnic humor research, or even in the research field of humor (Selberg ) . By situating this present study in ethnic humor research, this article fills this gap.…”