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

Abstract

Drawing on fieldwork in a multi-ethnic workplace (an industrial kitchen in Denmark), this article explores immigrants' self-directed ethnic humor in collegial relationships with Danes as it spontaneously develops and plays out in everyday work settings. Approaching ethnic humor from a symbolic interactionist perspective rather than adopting the dominant conflict approach, this article emphasizes the bonding functions of ethnic humor. The article argues that immigrants' engagement in playful behavior with ethnic stereotypes in interactions with Danes is a form of "impression management" in which they defuse ethnic stereotypes and dissociate themselves from them by building joking relationships in the workplace with Danes. A video abstract is available at https://tinyurl.com/esholdt.

The Risk Perception of the Chinese Diaspora during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Targeting Cognitive Dissonance through Storytelling

“…Indeed, we argue that care should be taken to train select peer leaders who are both morally and scientifically credible within their communities to serve as role models and mentors for storytelling with respect to cognitive dissonance. Doing so may prevent interpretive power from further marginalizing those who do not fit within the shared narrative, as the stories become the shared norm rather than idiosyncratic [35]. Further, while some may find emotional catharsis beneficial, it may induce others to provide unfavourable feedback or behave rudely, and even reinforce disinformation [36].…”

Playing with Oppression: Latinx Students’ Use of Humor to Navigate Assumed Racism

“…Scholars have also observed self-directed ethnic humor in spontaneous interactions and have discussed its ''liberating'' elements. An ethnography shows that immigrants in Denmark use self-deprecating humor that involves their own ethnic stereotypes preemptively and thereby critique and ridicule the tropes (Esholdt 2019).…”

“…Levitin (1964) observed that a low-status worker, by making himself the object of self-deprecation humor, separated himself from his low-status work while performing his low-status role. Similarly, the stigmatized invoke their own ethnic stereotypes preemptively to humorously perform an imagined, expected role and to ultimately dissociate themselves from the tropes (Esholdt 2019).…”

Sexual Minority Young Adults’ Construction of Workplace Acceptance in the Era of Diversity and Inclusion

“…We ground our study in the symbolic interactionist framework to gain insight into how sexual minority workers interpret workplace interactions and how they exercise their agency in their interpretations of these interactions. Although symbolic interactionism has not been directly applied to past studies of sexual minorities in workplaces, it has been used to study other marginalized groups in workplaces including women (Padavic 1991), ethnic minorities (Murray 1991), and immigrants (Esholdt 2019). In these studies, symbolic interactionism helped reveal how marginalized workers navigate their workplaces by strategizing interactions with colleagues and how marginalized workers’ and their colleagues’ interpretations of each other’s behaviors reproduce stereotypes and inequality in the workplace.…”