Excluding unlaughter: Humor as affective practice in a youth detention center for boys

Abstract

Ahmed has suggested that refusing to laugh may be used as a political strategy for oppressed groups. But what happens when it becomes a tool of discipline and exclusion? Drawing on a video ethnographic study of incarcerated boys and their staff in detention home treatment, this paper focuses on one of the boy's struggle for inclusion. Despite formal equal treatment, his exclusion was maintained by the others' refusal to laugh at his attempts to be funny. We thus aim to study, in interactional detail, how unlaughter may work as a subtle yet powerful affective practice.