The politics of joking: narratives of humour and joking among adults with Asperger’s syndrome
The purpose of this article is to analyse how humour and narratives about humour are used in a natural group of adults with Asperger’s syndrome. Narratives about humour and use of humour in the group are analysed from a discursive psychological perspective, informed by insights
from both disability studies and critical autism studies. The setting of the research is ethnographic fieldwork in an educational setting in Sweden. In the paper, I show the use of three storylines among a natural group of people with autism (PWA) when talking about humour: the storyline of
humourless PWA that dominates within Swedish society; and two alternatives, a storyline of alternative humour among PWA and another storyline in line with the social model of disability, of neurotypical humour or disabling humour. When invoking these two alternative storylines, PWA challenge
both the humourlessness storyline and the lack of social accessibility within mainstream neurotypical settings.
Keywords: Asperger humour; Asperger’s syndrome; disability humour; disabling humour; joking; neurotypical humour; social accessibility
Document Type: Research Article
Affiliations: Department of Sociology & Umeå Centre for Gender Studies,Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden
Publication date: 01 March 2012
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